Charmed: The next generation: Season One
by DiscordantSymphony
Summary: The adventures of the next generations of Halliwells as they try to deal with family drama, romance and ancient Evil.
1. Chapter 1

Charmed

The Next Generation

Episode One

Chapter One

In an apartment in San Francisco, on a dark and stormy night, a women with long, dark red hair and dressed in a colourful robe walked over to her altar which had an athame, amulets, several candles, a cauldron and a goblet full of red wine set upon it.

The woman took the goblet of red wine, took a sip and poured the rest of it in to her cauldron, she struck a match and started to light the candles. Once they were all light she began to chant in latin.

Halfway through her chant she was interrupted by a loud bang which came from her bedroom, the bang seemed to make all the pictures on the woman's walls shake.

The woman hurriedly glanced around the apartment to see if she could see what had made the noise, she picked up the athame from the altar and slowly stood up. She slowly walked to over to her bedroom door and pushed it open.

The room was empty, nothing that could have fallen and nothing was on the ground but she had defiantly heard something, their was no way in hell she could have just imagined it.

The woman screamed as someone grabbed her from behind, she thrashed wildly and tried to break free of whoever it was who grabbed her, however whoever grabbed her was prepared and drew his own athame and with a cry of victory shoved it in to her gut.

The woman's mouth fell open in pain, she tried to scream but all that came out was a noise that seemed like a mix between gasp and a whimper. Whoever grabbed her pulled the knife out of her with a firm gasp and let go of her.

The woman stumbled forward before falling down to the floor of the bed room, she curled into a ball and coughed; blood splattering on the carpet. She closed her eyes and never opened them, not ever again.

Her murderer gazed down at her silently for a moment before he disappeared for a moment before disappearing in a shimmer.

 **XXXxxxx**

Across the city a man dressed in a raincoat and holding up an umbrella to shield him from the heavy rain as walked quickly up the stairs to the porch of his home, a pink Victorian manor. As he reached the porch he reached into his pocket and pulled out his key, he slid it in to the lock, turned it, opened the door and walked inside.

Chris Halliwell sighed heavily as he took off his coat and hung it up, he closed his umbrella and leaned it against the front door. He shook his head rapidly to try and dry his hair. Chris started towards the living room and stopped in the doorway and smiled at what he saw.

His two baby brothers, Victor and Peter were sitting down on two sofas that were divided by a coffee table and on the coffee table was a chessboard. Victor was clearly trying to their younger brother his favourite game but going by the look on his face it wasn't going well.

Chris walked into the room and asked cheerfully. "So, who's winning?"

Victor and Peter both jumped at sudden question, they had been so deeply involved in their game that they hadn't noticed that Chris had come home. "Chris!" Peter shouted, delighted at seeing his older brother and delighted that he finally had an excuse to stop playing this dumb game.

Peter jumped off the sofa and ran over to his brother, hugging him tightly around the middle. Chris laughed and knelt down so he could give Peter a proper hug.

Victor walked over to where his brother's were hugging and silently waited for his, Chris let go of Peter and pulled Victor into a one.

Once Chris had finished with all the hugging he asked his brothers a question. "So, where is everyone else?"

"Mom and Dad are at Aunt Paige's house for diner, Melinda is at her boyfriend's and Penny and Ryan are upstairs in their rooms." Victor answered.

Chris nodded. "Right." he stood up. "Have the rest of you all had something to eat?" the two boys nodded. "Right, then I'm going to make myself something to eat. While I'm doing that Victor reset the board because I want a game after I've eaten, okay?"

Victor nodded with a smile before going to sit back down on one of the sofa to reset the board. Peter took this as permission for him to leave and he ran upstairs to go to his room.

Chris chuckled and made his way to the kitchen, he pulled out a saucepan, filled it with water from the tap and put it on top of the oven to boil, he didn't feel like much tonight, just some plan past.

As Chris was tending to the pasta the sound of someone clearing their throat drew his attention, Chris's younger brother Ryan was standing there, leaning against the kitchen wall. "Hey." Ryan said as he brushed his fingers through his messy hair.

Chris often wondered how that happened, no matter what Ryan seemed to do it always looked as through he put the least amount of effort on his hair possible, "Hey." Chris replied. "So, what have you been doing today?"

"Nothing much." Ryan replied with a shrug. "I finished all my homework so I don't have anything to do over the weekend. Oh, and I practiced on my levitating."

"Really?" Chris asked with a raised eyebrow, he couldn't deny he was a little surprised. Ryan had inherited their father's pacifism but had also inherited their mother's desire to be normal, while all the rest of them begged to go to magic school Ryan had begged not to go.

"Well, yeah." Said Ryan in a 'Duh' tone of voice. "I only got it a month ago and I want to keep it under control, I don't want to shot straight up in to the ceiling again."

Chris suddenly burst out laughing, he couldn't help it. He suddenly remembered how they had all discovered Ryan had the power to levitate, well it was true what they said, nothing can liven up a party like a trip to the emergency room.

Ryan scowled darkly. "Shut up, it's not funny!" And it wasn't funny, when he suddenly found himself shooting up into the air he don't think he had ever been more terrified.

Chris took a few deep breaths to try and calm down. Once he had clamed down enough, he still let out a little chuckle every now and then he started to talk. "I'm sorry Ryan, you're right it isn't funny." He said with an apologetic smile.

"What ever, anyway you won't believe this, Wyatt's on TV!" Exclaimed Ryan.

"What." Said Chris, dumbfounded. Why was their big brother on TV? 

"I know right, I mean, he didn't talk or anything he was only in the background but it was definitely him!" Ryan exclaimed excitedly.

"Why was Wyatt on TV in the background Ryan?" Chris asked.

"Oh, I don't remember. I just switched over to the news and their he was." Ryan said with a shrug. He then sniffed and looked at the pot of pasta. "Hey, can I have some of that?"

"Sure." Said Chris not really listening as he left the kitchen. "Call for me when it boils over all right?"

Ryan nodded as Chris left the kitchen, Chris walked into the living room and waved to Victor as he walked over to the TV, Chris picked up the remote and pressed the on button, as soon as he did so the TV turned on and he changed the channel over to the news.

"What's up?" Victor asked as he stood up from the sofa and walked over to his brother's side.

"I'm not sure yet." Said Chris as the commercials ended and the news started up again. A black woman, dressed in a sharp red suit with a smart hair cut and holding a microphone in one hand and an umbrella in the other. She was standing in front of an apartment building.

"I'm standing in front of an apartment building on the corner of twelfth and third where a murder has occurred, Elnora Tyrell, a journalist at the San Francisco Bay Mirror was found dead in her apartment over forty-five minutes ago. No word yet as to how she was killed but we will keep you informed."

Chris scanned the background as the woman finished talking to see if he could spot Wyatt but their was no sign of him. When he felt his sleeve being pulled on Chris turned and looked down to see Victor was the culprit.

"We're going to be okay, right?" Victor asked uncertainly and Chris frowned, he should've had Victor go upstairs. Victor was a worrier and would often worry about the family being affected when ever anything bad happened anywhere.

Chris turned off the TV and turned to face his little brother. "Listen." Chris began as he knelt down to Victor's level. "There is nothing for you to worry about okay, don't worry. Nothing is going to happen. I won't let anything happen, I swear."

As soon as Chris said this his phone rang, he pulled it out of his pocket and answered it. "Hello?"

"Chris it's me." It was Tamora, Aunt Paige's daughter and technically speaking her oldest as she was born three minutes before her sister Kat. "Have you seen the news?"

"Yeah, it's terrible isn't it?" Said Chris as he sat down on one of the sofas, Victor sitting down next to him.

"Yeah, yeah it is, listen can you come around tomorrow. We need to talk about something okay." Tamora sounded really worried about something. Chris nodded even through he realised how pointless it was, it wasn't as through Tam could see it.

"Sure I'll come around tomorrow."

"Great, see you then love you."

"Love you too." Said Chris and hung up the phone, he hoped Tamora and Kat were alright, he couldn't help but worry about them, their was only a year between the three of them and thus they had bonded together tightly.

He turned to Victor and smiled. "Come on, we've got a game to play!" it would be a while yet until his pasta was done, at least another ten minutes

Victor smiled brightly and ran over to the other sofa. There was no way he was going to let Chris beat him this time!

End of Chapter One

 **(A/N Hey guys, please review, favourite and follow and if you want basic background info on the characters, such as what powers they have or what occupations they have then please check out my profile page.)**


	2. Chapter 2

Charmed

The Next Generation

Episode One

Chapter Two

Chris and Victor were in the middle of their chess game, Chris clearly had the upper hand and Victor couldn't help but frown a little, Chris always beat him and it looked like this time would be no different.

Just before Chris could make the move that would allow him to call checkmate Ryan shouted for him. "Chris! Chris!"

Chris rolled his eyes and stood up, Ryan could be such drama queen. It was just a boiling pot of pasta for god's sake, as Chris walked into the kitchen his eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. A burly man had his large hands wrapped around Ryan's throat and was pressing his body down into the kitchen table.

Chris didn't wait a second to react, he flung out his hand and sent the demon flying of his brother. The demon flew with a scream into the far wall. Chris got in front of his brother and allowed lighting to crackle around his arm.

As the demon stood up, Chris threw out his arm again and a blast of electricity shot out and struck the demon straight in his chest, the demon screamed as the electricity burned through him and burnt him to nothing but a small pile of ashes and a scorch mark.

Chris quickly hurried to his brother and checked him over before pulling him into a hug after making sure that he was alright.

Ryan pulled away started to ramble. "I don't know what happened?! I was just watching the pasta, waiting for it to boil and then he just came out of nowhere!"

"Hey! Hey! It's alright Ryan it's okay it's not your fault." Chris soothed as Victor walked into the kitchen having heard the commotion.

"What happened?" He asked his older brothers with a concerned look on his face, he had heard a loud crash coming from the kitchen.

Before either Chris or Ryan could say anything they were interrupted by the telltale sound of someone shimmering into the house. They all turned to see twelve men dressed in black leather, the leader, a man with a tattoo of nine black interlocking thorns on his face grinned wickedly and threw a fireball at the three brothers.

Ryan held out hand with his palm out flat and there was a blue flash which sent the fireball flying back into the man who screamed in pain as he was consumed by flames. The demons stared dumbly at where the leader had been standing before looking back up at the brothers before throwing their own fireballs at them.

Chris raised his hand and used his telekinesis to throw the fireballs back, the demons ducked and Chris shouted at Victor and Ryan. "Victor, Ryan get upstairs now!"

Victor looked at his brother in shock. "No way! I'm not leaving you!"

Chris rolled his eyes, of course Victor would argue! He turned to Ryan. "Ryan! Get him out of here!" He shouted as he raised his hand ready to use his electrokinesis.

Ryan nodded and quickly grabbed his younger brother's arm and they both then disappeared in a shower of orbs before Victor could protest.

When the shower of orbs formed upstairs Victor pulled himself free of his brother's grip and looked at him in disbelief. "What is wrong with you!? You just left Chris down there with nearly a dozen demons!"

Ryan frowned heavily at his brother. "It's not my fault! He told us to get out of there and besides we would only get in the way."

Before Victor could reply to that, the door opposite them opened and their older sister Penny walked out of her room with her long brown hair which she had inherited from their mother pulled into a long pony tail.

"What's going on out here?" She asked as she rubbed at her eyes. "I'm trying to get some sleep!"

Before either of them could respond to her Victor and Peter's bedroom door opened and Peter stepped out rubbing at his eyes. "Why's everyone yelling?" He asked as he continued to rub at his eyes to try and get the sleep out of them.

"Demons are attacking downstairs and Chris told us to come up here and I said I wouldn't go because I didn't want to leave him alone but he told Ryan to take me upstairs and he grabbed me and orbed me upstairs and Chris is still downstairs being attacked and we need to go and help him now!" Victor shouted before taking several deep breaths to try and get his breath back.

Penny and Peter glanced at one another before looking at Ryan, Ryan nodded and Penny sighed. "Right." She turned to her two younger brothers. "You two stay here and don't come down until I or Chris or Ryan say so."

She then turned to Ryan. "Ryan, you're coming with me." Ryan nodded but he did look somewhat reluctant before following his sister as she made her way to the stairs.

As they made their way down to the bottom floor they both stopped on the stairs at what they saw.

Chris ducked behind the sofa as a demon twice the size of Chris threw a stream of fire at him, it flew over his head and struck the wall behind him.

Once the stream stopped Chris got up from behind the sofa, raised his palm to his lips and blew a cloud of ice particles shot towards the demon who dropped to the floor. Two more demons ran into the living room and conjured two fire balls into their hands ready to throw at Chris.

Penny, however had raised her hand and called for the fireballs, they disappeared into orbs and both demons screamed as they were consumed by flames from within, Penny had orbed the fire balls into their chests.

Chris and the demon turned to look at where the fire ball had been thrown from and they both stared in confusion at what they saw on the stairs, Chris's stare turned into a glare as he started to scold his sister and brother. "The two of you get upstairs right now!"

"We can't let you do this on your own." Penny replied. "And, plus I'm nearly eighteen you can't tell me what to do!"

"Seriously?" Chris asked with a disbelieving roll of his eyes. "You sound more like an immature twelve year old right now!"

"I do not!" Penny shouted in response, she then blushed as realised how immature that actually sounded. "And even if I did it doesn't change the fact that we can't leave you on your own to deal with all the demons, you know what Mom and Dad say, about how to have each other's back."

"I do know that Penelope, and I appreciate fact that you want to help but I can handle this myself so will you please go back upstairs!" He shouted, his tone leaving no room for arguments.

Ryan nodded and placed his hand on Penny's arm. "Come on Penny, Chris says he can handle this and I think he's doing okay so let's just go back upstairs." Ryan really didn't want to leave his brother on his own but he didn't like the idea of fighting and he wasn't any good at it so he would probably more of an hindrance than a help.

"No! I'm not going and you need someone watching your back!" Exclaimed Penny as she shook Ryan's hand of as she glared firmly at her older brother.

Chris sighed heavily and shook his head. "Will you stop being so stubborn and just listen to me! For god's sake you-"

"Excuse me." The three siblings turned to face the demon who had addressed them. "I don't want to interrupt but we were kind of in the middle of something so could we maybe finish this and then, if you're still alive then you can talk about this, dose that sound okay with you?"

Chris nearly blushed with embracement, he hated when he had arguments with his family members in front of other people and he especially hated it when he did it in front of demons. "Of course, sorry about that." He said before throwing a blast of electricity at the demon, vanquishing him.

The demon that had fallen to the floor to avoid the cloud of ice stood up to face Chris but Chris had used his empathy to tap into his sister's powers and threw a fireball into the demon's face.

Ryan and Penny started to make their way down the steps but stooped when two demons shimmered into the living room, Chris turned to face and used his telekinesis to threw the demons screaming into the sun room before rushing in after them, before Penny and Ryan could start to hurry down the steps to join their brother they felt someone's hands on their backs and before they could do anything someone pushed and they both went tumbling down the steps.

Once they had landed on the floor they both groaned in pain, Ryan propped himself up on his elbows and looked up at the demon who had pushed them down the stairs who grinning wickedly with a fire ball in his hand.

He threw it at them and Ryan quickly held up his hand with his palm out flat and a blue shield appeared around it which sent the fireball flying back into the demon who was vanquished by it with a scream.

Ryan slowly stood up with a groan before leaning down with his hand to help his older sister up. "You okay?" He asked.

Penny rubbed the back of her neck before answering. "Yeah, I'll be fine." she turned towards the entrance of the sun room. "Come on." She then ran towards the entrance with Ryan following behind her.

They ran in just in time to see their brother vanquishing the two demons with a blast of lightening from both of his hands, Chris breathed a sigh of relief before rubbing his hands together and turning to face his siblings. "You two okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine." Said Penny with a nod which Ryan copied, Chris nodded and looked around the sun room as if he was trying to spot something.

"What's up?" Ryan asked.

"I don't think I vanquished all the demons, their was the first demon that attacked you Ryan that I vanquished and then after they shimmered in to the kitchen I vanquished another and then after you orbed yourself and Victor upstairs I took care of another three and then there were those four in the living room and then those two in here I think that's only twelve and their should be thirteen." Chris frowned heavily as he realised this.

"Oh, their was another one that attacked us on the stairs but we took care of it." Said Penny with a proud smirk.

"We?" Said Ryan disbelieving as he stared at his sister.

Penny sighed heavily. "Fine, Ryan took care of it but I took care of two of those four in the living room and I actually wanted to fight them so my vanquish counts more."

"Counts more towards what, exactly?" Chris asked with an amused smirk as he crossed his arms.

"Yeah, what, exactly dose it count towards?" Ryan asked as he moved to stand next to his brother while crossing his arms.

"I don't know it just does, okay!" Penny shouted.

"Yes boss." Muttered Chris and Ryan with a sly smirk towards one another, Penny pouted and walked back into the living room with her brothers following after her. Chris made his way over to the stairs but before he could start to climb them someone on the steps cleared their throat.

Chris, Penny and Ryan looked up and saw Victor and Peter sitting down on the steps, the two boys looked down at them from where they were sitting, Victor started to speak. "Is it over?" He asked.

"Yeah, it is." Said Chris with a soft smile as he started to walk up the stairs and knelt down in front of them on the steps.

Peter smiled before lunging forward towards his older brother and wrapping his arms around Chris's neck. "I'm glad you're okay?" He murmured before burying his face in his brother's shoulder.

Chris smiled before rubbing his hand up and down Peter's back, Peter was the baby of the family and was thus very overprotected and he wasn't used to demon attacks and obviously needed more comfort than the rest of them.

He gently pulled away from Peter and carried on his way up the stairs after rustling both Peter and Victor's hair, Chris had to get to the attic to check the book, Penny and Ryan followed after him and Victor and Peter followed them.

Chris pushed open the attic door and walked over to the book, he flipped open the book's cover and started to flip through the pages to try and see if he could find anything on the demon's that had attacked them.

Penny looked at her brother in confusion. "Why are you looking through the book? This isn't the first time we've been attacked by random demons and we don't go to check the book every time there's an attack."

Chris sighed but didn't look up from the book. "First of all Penny, you don't always check the book after an attack and second of all that was the first attack in over three months and I want to know who they were so we can find out what made them decided to attack now."

Penny blinked in surprise. "Has it really been three months since the last attack?" She asked in disbelief, she knew it had been a long time since there had been an attack but she hadn't realised that it had been three months.

Ryan nodded. "Yeah it's been three months all right, I've been keeping track of them and they've been lovely, I could pretend that we were normal but now that's over."

Chris sighed in frustration at what Ryan said, he know that Ryan wanted to be normal but he practically ignored everything to do with magic unless there was a crisis, which was why he found it so surprising that Ryan had said he'd been practising his levitation.

"Shouldn't we call Mom and Dad and let them know what happened?" Victor asked as he moved to stand next to his brother so he could look into the book.

Chris moved to the side slightly so Victor could read the book more easily, "We will but I just want to see if we can find anything in the book first."

As Chris and Victor searched in the book to see if they could find anything Penny, Ryan and Peter walked over to their great, great Aunt Pearl's sofa and sat down on it.

After nearly an hour of searching Chris closed the book with a heavy sigh, Penny looked up at him. "What's wrong?"

"I can't find those demons anywhere in the book!" Exclaimed Chris as he chewed on his nails nervously.

"So if they aren't in the book, what does that mean, something new?" Victor asked as he looked at his older brother waiting for answers, he had never known Chris not to have any.

"Maybe or…"

"Or?" Penny asked.

"Something old, something that predates Melinda Warren." Chris mused with a worried look on his face.

End of Chapter Two


	3. Chapter 3

Charmed:

The Next Generation

Season One.

Episode One.

Chapter Three.

Piper smiled at her baby sister as laughed at something her husband had said, it had been ages since she and her sisters had met up for a nice dinner at one of their houses and she had forgotten how much she had missed this.

Leo was sitting next to her and Paige was sitting across from her, Henry was sitting next to her and Phoebe and Coop were sitting at the side of Paige.

Paige's kids weren't in the house at that moments, the twins had moved out a year ago, Adam had moved into his dorm room, Robert had taken on his duties as a full time whitelighter and Owen was spending most of his time out of the house going to parties which continually annoyed his parents.

Henry JR had also moved into his dorm room but it was unlikely he would be moving back anytime soon...Henry JR's relationship with his parents wasn't the best at the moment, he had recently found out he was adopted and he had not taken it well.

Piper didn't think that she could blame him, to be honest she had been more than a little surprised when Paige told her that she and Henry had no plan on telling him or any of their kids that he was adopted considering how Paige had reacted when she found out she was adopted.

The rest of the kids hadn't been happy when they found out their parents had been keeping it from them either, thankfully her and Leo's kids weren't too angry and Phoebe and Coop's understood that it wasn't their secret to tell.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by her phone ringing inside her of her pocket, she fished it out and answered it when she saw that it was Chris that was phoning her. "Heya Peanut, what's wrong?"

"Mom...before I tell you I need you to promise that you won't freak out." Chris said nervously on the other end of the line.

Piper frowned heavily. "Peanut, you know that "Promise you won't freak out." means "You are totally going to freak out." So you might as well just tell me anyway."

Chris sighed. "There was a demon attack!"

"What!?" Piper shouted and a window in the living room shattered, everyone turned their heads to look at her and she shot her baby sister an apologetic look. "Peanut, are you okay? What about everyone else?"

"We're fine, I handled it and-" There was the sound of a scuffle in the background and what sounded like someone shouting and making a grab for the phone.

"Penny! Sit down!" Chris yelled before he sighed loudly. "Penny wants me to let you know that if it wasn't for her I would be dead which I personally think is more than a little bit of an overstatement."

Despite what happened she couldn't help but smile at that. "I see, anyway were you able to identify them yet?"

"They weren't anywhere in the book but there was a distinct marking on all of them, I'll look them up in the morning but I think we should have a family meeting about tomorrow as well."

Piper agreed with her son and said goodbye before hanging up on her son and telling everyone around the table what had happened. The reaction was mostly what she expected, that was to say alarm, it had been years since there had been an actual demon attack at the actual manor.

Piper told them about having a family meeting over breakfast and Paige orbed both her and Leo home with a wave of her hand.

 **XXXxxxx**

Prudence Johanna Halliwell, PJ for short, sighed heavily as she edited the article that one of the bay mirror's staff writer's had submitted, the idea behind the story hadn't been bad but the presentation had been just awful, every other word was misspelled and the sentence structure was awful. She knew that it was her job to edit articles but they were never normally so bad that she had to rewrite the whole thing before.

She ran her fingers through her long dark hair, she needed some coffee: Bad.

She saved the document and powered down the laptop before standing up and walked out of her cramped office, the coffee was cheap and tasted like tar but she would take it right now, she hadn't got much sleep the night before and she been working pretty much none stop since.

PJ sipped at her tar and frowned at the taste but she could already feeling it waking her up so she was able to deal with the revolting taste, she knew that it wasn't fair to complain considering she knew that Elnora was having a bad time lately, the woman looked exhausted most days as she apparently hadn't been getting much sleep lately due to some serious nightmares at least that was what the office gossip pool told her.

But even so her sympathy could only stretch so far and this wasn't the first assignment that Elnora had phoned in on in the past few weeks and it was unfair that she had to pick up the slack, she needed to talk to her boss about this.

She would normally hate going to Dean to complain about a co-worker but there was only so much that she was willing to take and she had went past her limit ages ago.

Dean was actually quite young considering he was the editor-in-chief of one of the last newspapers in the country, print media was pretty much dead by now but somehow Dean kept making all the right moves that kept the bay mirror afloat.

PJ walked over to his office and knocked on his door, waiting for him to reply before she pushed the door open and walked in. "Dean, I know it's late and you probably really just want to go home but I really need to talk to you and it can't wait."

Dean narrowed his green eyes at her before sighing heavily and closing his laptop. "All right Ladybug, let's here it."

PJ had to fight the urge to groan out loud when he used her childhood pet name, everyone had heard her mother call her that when she dropped her off at the office on her first day and despite how much she had hoped that it would day it never seemed to do so.

"It's about Elnora, I am aware that it's my job to edit the articles but I don't think it's fair that I have to completely rewrite them to make them sutiable to go into the paper, I need you to talk to her."

Dean sighed heavily and rubbed at his face. "I'm aware of it PJ, I know that you've been picking up her slack and I appreciate it but you're right that it's not fair that you have to basically do her work for her, I'll talk to her in the morning and make it clear that if she doesn't pull it together then she can find another job."

"What!? Wait I didn't mean that I want you to fire her!" PJ exclaimed with an alarmed expression on her face, she might be a little irritated with Elnora but she would never want her to lose her job. "I just-

Dean held up his hand to stop her from talking. "Look, I know. But we're in a tough place right now and everyone needs to pull their own weight and if she can't do that then I can't keep her on."

PJ sighed but nodded. "Okay, but don't be too hard on her, please?"

"I won't fire her tomorrow, that's all I can promise." Dean said as he opened his laptop back up and turned it on before he glanced at her over the lid. "Anyway, you should head home. You've been working none stop since you got here and you must be exhausted, head home and no arguments." He ordered with a pointed look.

PJ sighed, knowing better than to argue and to be honest she didn't really want to anyway, she was exhausted after all and all she wanted to do was collapse on to her bed and not wake up for a week.

She turned on her feet and left the room, picked up her coat and bag from her office and entered the elevator before hitting the button for the underground parking lot.

She sighed heavily and the elevator began it's slow decent down. She felt awful, she had really just wanted to vent to someone and now because she couldn't keep her big mouth shut she had put a co-worker's job in danger.

She would have to remember to apologise to Elnora tomorrow though god knows that would be awkward, she didn't really want to think about it tonight anyway.

PJ walked over to her bike and threw her leg over it to mount the bike before she slid the key into the ignition and twisted it, the bike roared to life and PJ speed out of the parking lot.

She loved driving through the city at night when it was just her, the wind blowing through her hair and the lights of San Francisco at night the only true illumination she had, she knew that her mother would probably blow a gasket if she ever found out that she was driving without a helmet but to be honest she really didn't care.

She arrived in front of her apartment complex and hurried through the lobby to reach the elevator and took it up to her floor, left the elevator and walked to her apartment.

PJ slammed the door shut behind her and locked it tight, she walked into her living room and collapsed on to her sofa and rested her head against one of the couch pillows.

She was very nearly asleep when her phone rang loudly inside of her of her bag, she groaned loudly and fished it out before answering the call. "Hello?"

"Ladybug! Are you alright?!" Her mother shouted on the other side of the line and PJ frowned.

"Mom? I'm fine what's wrong?" PJ asked with a frown, her mother sounded worried and that was never a good sign since for the most part her mother was pretty much an optimist.

"There was a demon attack at the manor: Now don't worry everyone is fine but there's going to be a family meeting at the manor to talk about what happened so make sure that you there about nine in the morning, I need to go now cause I need to check on your sisters." Before PJ could say anything else her mother hung up on her and she sighed heavily.

She really wanted to hit something.

But more than that she really wanted to just go to bed.

She sighed and got off of the couch before leaving the living room, entering the bedroom, stripping naked and crawling into bed. She was out like a light as soon as her head hit her pillow.

As she slept a figure in a dark robe with strange red symbols on the sleeves shimmered into her bedroom, they waved their arm and the room glowed slightly and when the light died the figure shimmered out.

End of Chapter Three.

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	4. Chapter 4

Charmed:

The Next Generation

Season One.

Episode One.

Chapter Four

Chris hummed as he plopped the bacon into the pan and it began to fry next to the sunny side up eggs, making breakfast for a large family was difficult at the best of times and that was only when he was cooking for his own parents and siblings, when he was cooking for the entire family it was incredibly difficult.

But thankfully he was incredibly good at doing what he did and lots of practice, and a little bit of magic here and there more than made up for it. He knew that it was technically speaking personal gain but he honestly couldn't find it in himself to care right now. He knew that he didn't have long before his parents and siblings got up.

His attention was drawn by the sound of feet coming down the stairs and he turned his head to see his baby brother Peter walking into the kitchen, he was still dressed in his PJ's and his blond hair was still messy from sleep.

"What are you doing up so early Kiddo?" Chris asked Peter as he sat down at the breakfast table.

"I couldn't sleep and I'm hungry." Peter said tiredly as he rubbed at his eyes to try and get the sleep out of them. "What you makin?"

"Eggs and Bacon, your favourite." Chris said as he took a glass out of the cupboard and then got a carton of chocolate milk and filled the glass all the way to the rim. He handed the glass over to Peter who took it eagerly and then drank it down in three gulps.

"You should've savoured that, there's no way I am letting you have another glass of it today." Chris said with a chuckle as his little brother stared at the empty glass and then chucked into the air, before it could fall Peter flicked out his hands and while the glass did fall it fell very slowly, only falling around an inch every few seconds.

Peter sighed heavily and reached up to grab the glass and threw it in to the air again before flicked out his hands and once again slowing it's fall, he did this again and again and again and with each time he did so it was clear that he was getting aggravated.

"What are you doing that for?" Chris asked as he placed the next lot of eggs and bacon on the plate and turned down to face his brother with an amused expression.

"I'm trying to get it to stop! Like mom and Mel and Cousin Kat can make stuff stop but all I can do is slow stuff down!" He said with a whine before he pouted heavily and rested his head on the table.

Chris sat down at the table and placed his hand under his brother's chin and tilted his head up. "Okay first of all, that isn't all you can do and you know it, you can speed things up as well. Look, I know you want your powers to grow but you can't force it. It will happens when it happens, keep practicing of course but it'll only grow when it's ready."

"I hate waiting." Peter muttered with a sigh.

"You've got to be patient Kiddo, it's a good lesson to learn." Chris said as he stood up, the poor kid still looked miserable however and Chris couldn't help but sigh as he realised that he couldn't let him be this unhappy without at least trying to make him feel better.

And so he took the glass and filled it up with chocolate milk again and placed it in front of Peter. "If anyone asks that is the only glass you've had today, got it?" He said as he knew that his parents were trying to cut down on Peter's sugar intake and they would kill him if they found out.

Peter giggled and nodded rapidly, his shoulder length blond hair falling into his eyes as he did so.

Chris turned back to the stove as Peter started to drink from his glass again, this time only taking slow sips to savour the rich chocolaty taste.

Almost as soon as Chris turn back to the stove he heard footsteps approaching and he looked up in time to see Victor walk into the kitchen, a book being held under the crook of his arm. "Is the food ready? I'm starving!"

Chris opened his mouth to answer but he was cut off by a loud moan as Penny walked into the kitchen, her hair a mess from sleep and her eyes closed as she rubbed at them. "Why do we have to get up this early again? It's not like a demon attack in an uncommon thing for us."

"Because it's been a while since the last organised one and a very long time since we've dealt with a group of demons that weren't even mentioned anywhere in the book. So, please no whining just sit down and eat. You're going to need your strength today and don't try to get out of it cause we both know that you won't." Penny sighed but she seemed to tired to argue so she simply went to the table and sat down.

"And no Champ, we're not eating till everyone else gets here." Chris said and Victor heaved a heavy sigh and walked over to the table to sit next to his older sister, he places his book on the table and begins to read it.

Chris was about halfway through his work when his parents walked into the kitchen, his father walked over to the table and sit to the left of the head of the table while his mother came over to talk to him.

"Are you alright Peanut? Do you want me to take over for you?" Piper asked her second son, she hated that she had to hand over the work to him and if it was just cooking for them and their branch of the family then she would be more than capable of handling it but now that she was getting older she had to hand most of the chores over to her son.

She had even given him more responsibility at the restaurant and the club, she had given him half of both and while Piper still did most of the paperwork and she owned both technically she was aware that Chris did most of the practical work. It wouldn't be long now till she retired and they would both belong fully to Chris and she knew that she was leaving both her establishments in safe hands.

"Nah, I'm okay Mom. I've got it, you just relax." Chris said with a smile and Piper nodded and went to sit down at the head of the table, as soon as she sat down Ryan walked into the kitchen looking almost as dishevelled as Penny did, he didn't say anything merely let out a huge yawn and went to sis at the table.

Chris finally managed to finish enough plates to fill the table for them at least and with a wave of his hand sent them to the table in a shower of orbs, aside from two that he was saving for when Melinda and Wyatt got here, he was fairly certain that he could feel his mother shooting a look at him but at the moment he honestly didn't care as there was no way he was going to be able to carry them all at once and this just saved time.

He had found that the elders or mother earth or the forces of the universe or whatever governed personal gain and it's consequences generally didn't mind if you used magic for little things like this so long as you didn't do it to often. Big things we're different, like summoning the dead from the afterlife could only be done once in a while and they couldn't keep them around for longer than twelve hours or it started to be considered personal gain, there were no expectations even in emergencies.

He was just about to get started on the second batch when the room was filled with the sound of orbing and Paige and Henry and their sons, apart from Robert and Henry JR, appeared in the kitchen, they all said the greetings and sat down at the table.

As soon as they had sat Kat and Tamora orbed in, they appeared right besides Chris and if he wasn't used to the both of them doing that than he probably would have jumped and hurt himself. Instead he simply raised an eyebrow at them before he began to speak after they had said their hellos to their parents, brothers, uncle, aunt and cousins.

"So, what did you two want talk about?" He asked referring to their phone call from the other night, he kept his voice low but he didn't really need to as the rest of their family was currently engaged in talking with one another. It wasn't that there was a reason that he didn't want them to hear it was just ever since he and the twins had been kids they were used to telling things only to one another and he was going to talk to them about it so it was more than likely that they wanted to keep it private, they kept one another's secrets and never told anyone.

Well, except for that one time that Chris had told Paige that Kat was the one sneaking cookies from the jar in the kitchen when she was six and she didn't speak to him for at least two months.

Kat and Tamora shot a glance at one another and Chris realised that they were probably having a mental conversation, when the twins had turned four they started to spend long periods of time just staring at one another quietly, for a time he remembered that his uncle and aunt were worrying that perhaps their daughters had a disorder or weren't interested in the rest of the family, or worse, they were under the effects of a spell or being tormented a demon.

It eventually became clear however that wasn't the problem, it wasn't a problem at all actually as it became apparent that the girls had a new power, they shared a mental bond that sometimes occurred in magical beings that shared a womb, it was a rare event and that's why it had taken the family so long to figure out what was going on with them. They had thankfully managed to find out what was going on before the twins had been sent to a child shrink.

Eventually the twins looked away from one another and Tam spoke, her voice low. "You know our friend Talia?"

"The seer?" Chris asked as he moved the bacon around to stop it from burning, he vaguely remembered a girl with long red hair and blue eyes that had lived a few doors down from the girls. "Vaguely, I mean we never really talked or anything. Why, what's wrong with her?"

"She's gone. Her apartment was cleared out yesterday and when we went to check on her and found out she'd gone all we found was a note, it was addressed to us." Kat said.

"What did it say?" Chris asked as he turned to face the twins, crossing his arms as he did.

"Kat, Tam I am sorry it has to be this way but it has to be. If you know what I saw was coming you would both run as well, you've been good friends but I am not going to die for you, I'm sorry Talia." Kat said, she had always been great at remembering things. "We tried to scry for her but we can't find her anywhere, it's like she's blocked herself."

That was something of a concern, a seer wasn't able to cast spells so the only way she would be able to block herself from being scryed for would be to ask another witch to cast a spell for them or for the seer or individual to not be on this plane of existence anymore.

The most likely explanation then was that Talia was down in the underworld and if that was true then she more than likely dead or was being held prisoner.

Chris could tell that his cousins were worried, not only because of the fact that he was an empath and he could literally feel their worry as if it were his own but because he was so close to his cousins that he could always read them without any powers. The three of them had always been as close as siblings.

His nose twitched he smelt the bacon beginning to burn so he quickly turned on his feet and picked up his spatula and moved the bacon around, he manged to save it but it still looked a little black, Wyatt could have, he loved burnt bacon. "Look, you guys get sat down and we'll deal with this demon attack that happened last night and then once we've handle that we can deal with Talia."

Both girls nodded and they went to sit down at the table.

"So, Paige, Where are Robert and Henry Jr?" Piper asked her baby sister.

"Well Robert's busy with all his new charges but he did say that he would try and join us later and Henry..." Paige sighed and rubbed her face. "He didn't want to come."

Piper felt a stab of pity for her sister, a few months ago when the Mitchells had been having a spring clean Henry JR had been cleaning out the old study and while doing so he had discovered his adoption certificate and ever since then he had taken to avoiding his parents. When Henry was adopted it was decided that it would be best for everyone to not bring it up to the other kids as they didn't want to isolate Henry. When they were asked why Henry didn't have any powers the story they told them was that when Henry was a baby a demon had stolen his powers and they hadn't been able to get them back before they vanquished it.

To be honest she was surprised that Paige had done it, she had been so angry at her adoptive parents when she was younger for keeping her adoption a secret from her and now her baby sister was reliving her parents mistake.

Now the result of their choice was that now Henry didn't want to be anywhere near the rest of the family and he was isolating himself, she couldn't imagine how horrible it must feel for Paige and Henry Sr that there own choice had resulted in what they feared the most.

She also couldn't help but feel bad for the kids, they had no idea what had caused Henry to withdraw from the rest of them and it had been especially hard on his siblings, and especially on the twins who loved their little brother.

"I did try and convince him to come but he said that he didn't want to and then he locked me out of our room." Adam said with a shrug and an apologetic look on his youthful face, the two brothers only had a year between them and thus they were both able to be in collage together and were lucky enough to be maid roomates when Henry's first roommate had dropped out.

"Don't worry about it buddy, your brother just needs some time on his own." Henry Sr said, the tone of his voice not matching the comforting words. It was clear to Piper that man regretted the lies he told his son greatly.

For a few moments the kitchen was silent expect for the sound of sizzling oil, then it was broken by the sharp zap of Phoebe beaming in with Coop, their four daughters Parker, Priscilla, Patience and Peyton appearing next to them in pink flashes. Parker was holding on to Priscilla's arm as she could not beam herself as she did not have that power, she didn't have any powers in fact.

Parker had been conceived and was born during a time when the magic had swapped, all the mortals had magic and all the witches, all magical beings in fact, had become completely and utterly powerless and when Parker had been born the magic had been switched back but Parker's magic hadn't returned to her, if she even had magic to begin with.

That had caused her to be distant from the rest of the family as well but had caused her to be closer to HJ, the two of them often spent the most time together before HJ had found about his adoption and after he had she was the only one that he would speak too.

Their family was in a little bit of a mess at the moment to say the very least, a demon attack actually simplified things. She could deal with a demon attack.

With a sigh Piper stood up from the table and walked over to her son. "Peanut, let me take over from here. You get sit down, you need a break and you've a lot to do today."

Chris furrowed his eyebrows at his mother. "Mom I can handle it, really I don't mind-"

"Chris." Piper said finally and Chris sighed heavily, he knew that trying to argue with his mother was a losing battle when she set her mind on something so he simply nodded in defeat and made his way over to the table, sitting next to Ryan who looked a little more awake now.

"We should probably call Wyatt and Melinda and tell them to come." Leo pointed out and everyone at the table nodded, they had been informed last night that there had been a demon attack and they should keep their guards up but they hadn't been told about this breakfast meeting, there had been a lot to do last night that they had forgotten to mention the meeting.

"I'll call Melinda." Ryan said as he took the phone out of his pocket.

"And then I guess I'll call Wyatt." Chris muttered as he pulled out his phone.

Ryan managed to get through to Melinda and while there was a lot of shouting on the other end of the line eventually the girl appeared in the kitchen in a shower of orbs, her long blond hair messy. "Sorry I'm late, it would've been nice to know beforehand that were having a family meeting at like eight in the morning and plus I've got to get back for my classes."

"Well, you know now don't you?" Piper said as she began to lay the last of the dishes on the table, only Wyatt and PJ weren't present at the moment so there was no reason for them not to begin eating now. "Now, sit down and eat and don't complain, you won't miss your classes I promise."

Melinda sat down and as she did Chris looked up from his phone. "He's not picking up, I think he might have turned it off."

Piper sighed in annoyance and opened her mouth to shout, as she did so everyone at the table covered their ears as they knew how loud Piper could get when she shouted. "Wyatt Matthew Halliwell! Get your ass here right now or I swear to god that I will come down to the police station and show everyone your baby pictures, including ones from that play when you were a pumpkin and I-"

Piper was interrupted in her rant by Wyatt orbing into the kitchen, dressed in nothing more than a white t-shirt and a pair of blue pyjama bottoms and shooting an annoyed look at his mother. "I have literally only just got up, I only managed to get a shirt on what do you want? What's the problem?"

"Have you forgotten that your brothers and sisters were attacked last night? We need to talk about that!" Piper said with a look of irritation on her face at her eldest's attitude. "And watch your tone."

"Well it would've been nice to be told that we were having a family meet-

"I already did that part." Melinda said interrupting her brother, shrugging off the glare he shot at her. Wyatt than went to sit down at the table and Piper sat down as well, at the head of the table.

"Where is PJ?" Pricsilla asked as she realised that her older sister was the only one not present at the table, she had of course gone to live on her own a few months back but it did cause problems when they needed to plan things. It was the same thing that cause problems with Wyatt living on his own as well and Melinda living in a dorm room.

"She said she would be hear Princess, she called earlier and mentioned that she would be here a little later than the rest of us because she wanted to finish up some work and then she would drop in on her way to work." Phoebe explained with a proud smile on her and everyone suddenly dreaded that Phoebe would gone on another speech about how proud she was of PJ.

Ever since her daughter had gotten the job at the bay mirror Phoebe would not shut up about how proud she was, every other word she said about PJ now was about how PJ was working so hard and how proud she was and how she was such a good example for her sisters to follow. To say it set an unrealistic example was a little of an understatement.

Thankfully they were spared from having to listen to the speech when they heard the front door opening, PJ walked into the kitchen with her hair pulled up into a ponytail and dressed in a leather jacket with a brown satchel bag slung over her shoulder. "Sorry I'm late, traffic was really bad and I wanted to finish something for work before I left." She then sat down with the rest of her family. "So, got the basics last night, what are we going to do about it?"

Everyone turned to their heads towards Piper, she was the family matriarch and everybody always defaulted to her being charge. Piper took a deep breath and began to speak. "The plan is for us all to go to the magic school library, if the book doesn't have any info on these demons then that would be the best place to start looking. If that doesn't work out then, and only then, we will go down to the underworld and interrogate some demons for information."

"Now, before we head off we should discus what we do know?" Piper turned her head to look at her second son. "Chris, anything you can tell us about these demons?"

"I was there too you know, could ask me about it." Penny muttered as she crossed her arms. Chris rolled his eyes at his sister's comment before he began to speak.

"Their human in appearance, I didn't see many powers I think they mainly used fire balls and they power to shimmer, oh, one of them did throw fire at me. I don't think they were very powerful demons but the oddest thing was the mark, some of them had it on their faces and others had it on their arms but they all had it, nine snakes interlocking into the shape of a circle and what looked a door inside the circle."

"What?" Wyatt said with a look of disbelief on his face, everyone looked at him and he spoke. "Last night a woman was murdered, I was at the scene and it was...odd. All the doors and windows were locked and there was no sign of forced entry. The woman had been stabbed to death and here's thing, near her body we found a black disk. It had that exact same mark on it."

The kitchen was silent as what Wyatt said actually sunk in, a woman had been killed and if the disk with the mark was any indication then she was most likely a witch meaning that last night was no random attack but part of something much, much larger.

Piper sighed. "Alright, we need to go to magic school now."

"Mom, I need to go back for classes. I can't miss them today." Melinda pointed out.

"I need to go the police station." Said Wyatt.

"I need to go to the hospital, I can't ask someone to take my shift again." Said Kat with a frown, she loved her family but the constant family emergencies were really starting to make her look bad.

"It might not be as important but I do need to go into work." Tamora said, she needed to work if she was going to get the money she needed saved up for her ultimate dream.

"I've got a lot to do and the club and the restaurant that really can't wait." Chris pointed out.

"I need to go into work and drop my assignment off but I promise I'll be there as soon as I can." PJ said.

"All right then, you all do what you need to do and then met the rest of us later." Piper said and everyone who had spoken nod.

Everyone who was at the table stood up and everyone aside from Chris, Wyatt, Melinda, PJ, Tam and Kat orbed and beamed out, those who couldn't teleport taking those that couldn't.

Those that were left behind began to make their way around, getting ready for their day.

End of Chapter Four

* * *

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	5. Chapter 5

Charmed:

The Next Generation

Season One.

Episode One.

Chapter Five.

PJ sighed as the elevator began to climb up to the floor which held the offices of the Bay Mirror, she was not looking forward to this. She had been frustrated sure but she hadn't meant to put another person's job on the line. Dean looked for any excuse to fire someone to keep from spending as little money as possible and she didn't blame him. Print media was on it's last legs and the Bay Mirror was the last newspaper in San Francisco and the fact it had survived so long was impressive and almost completely due to his actions and before him, her Aunt Elise.

But she did not want Elnora to lose her job, when she dropped her assignment off on Dean's desk she was going to try and convince him not to fire here, she knew that she had an uphill battle if had made his decision already but Elnora's job was only in danger because of her so she at least had to try.

The elevator pinged as it arrived on the floor and the doors slid open and PJ stepped out, she walked over to the double doors which lead into the main office and pulled them open and the sight that greeted her made her pause. Everyone was dressed in black or subdued colours and the normally frantic noise that was common in the office was absent, everyone was quite and speaking only in whispers and she saw that everyone seemed to be more than a little distressed, quite a few people had red eyes.

Her knees nearly bucked as her empathy picked up on her wave of sorrow.

Annabel, a junior editor, was walking past the door and PJ gently grabbed her arm to stop her, she was dressed in a smart black skirt suit and tears were running down her cheeks as she turned to look at her. "Anna, what is going on?"" She whispered.

"Oh, PJ." Annabel whispered as she reached up to brush away her tears, she sniffled and breathed harshly. "It's so awful, Elnora is dead."

"Wbat?" PJ said in disbelief, how could that have happened. She had seen her just yesterday when she handed in her assignment to be edited, she had not been at her but how could she be dead? It wasn't possible. "How?"

"She was murdered, last night in her apartment." Annabel said and she had to put a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob and PJ sighed heavily and shut her eyes before she rubbed Annabel's arm to try and offer her some comfort.

"I should get back to work, I'm trying to keep my mind off of it." Annabel said quietly and PJ nodded, she needed to talk to Dean anyway. She walked over to his office, the door was closed but he could see him sitting at his desk with his head in his hands, she opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind her.

"Dean? Are you alright?" PJ asked but she already knew the answer even before he looked up at her, being an Empath meant that you always know how a person felt even when you didn't want to, it had been a struggle she had been dealing with almost her entire life. Even when she managed to get control of her power it wasn't like she could turn it off, there was always a background of emotion that she always picked up on and sometimes it was unbearable.

It was the reason she tended to avoid places that had a lot of high emotions, like hospitals or funerals unless she absolutely had to go to them otherwise she could end up a complete wreck.

Dean sighed and rubbed at his face for a moment. "Elnora's dead, I'm going to assume that you heard. Did you know what I was doing when Sandy came in and told me? I was working on what I was going to say for when I was going to fire her. I'd already made up my mind and nothing was going to change my mind and then boom! She's dead and I don't have to worry about it anymore, funny how things work out sometimes." He said with a harsh laugh before his face crumpled and he took in a few harsh breaths that PJ knew was to keep himself from crying.

PJ sighed, all last night and all the way here she had been thinking on what to day to Dean but she had never stopped to think how he was feeling which was kind of ironic now that she thought about it, he wasn't a bad man and she knew that he didn't want to fire anyone and now he must be feeling terrible for thinking about the best way to fire her when she had been dead all the time.

"It wasn't your fault, you didn't do anything." PJ said as she sat down on the other side of the desk. "You didn't have anything to do with her dying, some monster out there killed her and it's not your fault, it isn't remotely your fault."

"I know, I know that. But I was such an ass to her these past few weeks and I now feel like a monster, you know?" Dean whispered before he took a deep breath to try and steady himself as he rubbed at his eyes.

"I know, I understand, believe me I do." PJ said as she reached out and gently took his hand to try and offer some comfort. "But just keep reminding yourself it wasn't your fault, keep saying that over and over again and one day you will believe it."

Dean nodded and sighed heavily before he coughed to clear his throat. "Right, I think I'm going to let everyone go home early, we'll survive one day. If you want to head home now then I understand."

"Thanks, I really appreciate that Dean. I think I will, before I go though I have Elnora's assignment that I finished editing this morning." She took the memory stick which contained the assignment out of her satchel bag and handed it over. "Maybe we could run it, like in tribute or something."

"That's not a bad idea." Dean said as he reached out and took the memory stick and plugged it into his laptop and glanced over the documents. "It looks good, I should credit you as well considering how much you had to edit it."

"No, give her all the credit. It was her idea and if she had been on top of her game it would be even better than it is now." PJ said as she got out of her chair and brushed some of her hair back. "If it's alright then I am going to head home."

Dean nodded and PJ turned on her feet and left his office, as she began to make her way out of the Bay Mirror it suddenly started to come together in her head. The woman who had been murdered in her apartment last night was Elnora and if the murder was connected to the demons that had attacked the manor last night then that meant that Elnora had to be a witch.

She wasn't sure how to feel about knowing that Elnora was a witch, she had been working with her for nearly two years and she had never had any idea that she had ever been a witch, it bothered her that she had never noticed cause it made her realise that she hadn't really ever spoken to her aside from work stuff. She tried to keep her work and her personal life and her magical life separate.

Not only was she confused about their being another witch in her place of work but she was also more than a little unnerved, a witch who had been working with her had presumably been killed by the same demons who had attacked her cousins the night before, there was no way in hell that was a coincidence. San Francisco had one on the highest population of witches in the world, there were thousands so they clearly picked a witch that was close to her, at lest in proximity.

They were trying to send a message.

And that disturbing thought was all that accompanied her as the elevator descended back to the ground floor.

* * *

Wyatt walked into the homicide division office, a large open area with around forty desks packed into it, half the desks were already occupied by officers and there was thrum of activity and conversation. Wyatt walked over to his desk and sat in his chair, turning on his desktop as he did so.

As his computer warmed up he looked away from them when he heard the click of heels echoing on the polished floor of the room, a manicured hand handed over a Styrofoam cup of coffee which he took gratefully. "Thanks Sam."

"Not a problem," Samantha Umi said as she sipped her own coffee, her long back hair was pulled back into a tight bun this morning and her small brown eyes narrowed in disgust at the taste. "Oh, god take some advice. Do not drink this, it is really bad this morning."

"Sam. It's always bad." Wyatt pointed out to his partner with a grin but he didn't make any move to drink any of his coffee.

"It's really, really bad this morning though!" Sam said as she threw her cup into the bin at the side of Wyatt's desk. "It's like, someone thought "Hey? You know how the cops never complain about the really shitty coffee were giving them? Well, how about send them worse and worse coffee until they finally snap and kill one another?" Sam said with a huff.

Wyatt blinked in disbelief at his partner's weird thought pattern, Sam was a great cop and on the job she was always a complete professional but when they weren't at a crime scene or waiting for evidence to be processed or waiting for the lab to call them back then she would talk about some of the weirdest shit he had ever heard in his entire life.

And he once saw a mountain troll trying to pretend to be a high elf so he could sneak into a meeting between all the different elf clans, the weirdest thing was that it actually worked and it took everyone two whole hours before they managed to see through his disguise. Not to say that there weren't day when he didn't enjoy Sam's weird thought processes.

In a show of solidarity Wyatt dropped his cup into the bin as well, Sam nodding in satisfaction at the action. "Did the lab get back to us yet about the evidence yet?" Wyatt asked as he logged in.

"Well, the only fingerprints we found in the apartment were the victims, there was no sign of forced entry so that means that she must've let the killer in, and that means she either knew them or they had a job that you would open the door for like a pizza delivery guy or maybe a Laundromat dropping off dry cleaning. Or hey, maybe she ordered a hooker, who knows." Sam said with a smirk and Wyatt shook his head.

"It is weird however, there's almost nothing for us to going. There wasn't a murder weapon at the scene and it didn't look like anything was missing so that suggests to me that the killer brought their own weapon with them which would mean that they weren't their specifically to kill them." Sam said before she crossed her arms and leaned in close. "Do you want to know my main theory?"

"Go ahead." Wyatt said.

"I think it might be occult related, I mean the vic had that alter in her living room right? Maybe she and the killer were a part of the same cult and it was some kind of sacrifice deal." As Sam explained her theory Wyatt bit his lip, it wasn't an impossible theory and he had been shocked when he had seen the alter, he had never been to a murder scene where the victim had been another witch.

But witches didn't tend to sacrifice one another, good witches and wiccans didn't sacrifice anything, it was possible of course that she was an evil witch but then she probably had some powers to protect herself so if she was part of some sort self sacrificing cult then she probably knew what powers her killer had and she would've been able to protect herself.

But she had been stabbed once in the gut and going by the angle she had been stabbed from the behind, near her body had been an Athame but it was spotless and it wasn't the murder weapon, they ruled that out last night. She had been in the middle of working a protection spell, a very basic one going by what had been on her alter but it hadn't been near her alter it was in her bedroom near her body.

She knew that she was in danger but she didn't know from what otherwise she wouldn't have armed herself with an athame, perhaps someone had been following her? But the disk with the mark was the same as the tattoo that Chris had described on the demon's cheek but why would a demon use a blade to kill someone and not an energy ball.

He didn't have much time to think on when he heard someone calling his name, he looked and had to hold in a groan when he saw his Uncle Darryl walking over to his desk, he loved his uncle of course but he was his boss first and he could be such a hard ass. "Yeah chief?" He asked.

"I need to talk to you, in private." He glanced at Sam who shrugged and then nodded to Wyatt as she stood up and walked off, Daryl sat down and looked around briefly before locking gazes with Wyatt. "Be honest with me here kid, this is a weird case but is it our kind of weird."

Wyatt was silent for a moment before he nodded and Daryl sighed heavily and rubbed his face a moment before he nodded. "All right." He said, his voice still muffled by his palms before he pulled them away and looked at him. "Are you and the others going to be able to handle this?"

Wyatt nodded.

"Are your folks still coming to dinner on Saturday?" Daryl asked and when Wyatt nodded he stood up. "Good, I'll leave this up to you."

Before he could walk away Wyatt stood up. "There is one thing that could help us out chief, that black disk we found at the crime scene has a similar mark on it as a demon that attacked the manor last night, the others are at magic school trying to find out what sort of demons they were so we could really use it to help us."

Daryl was quite for a moment as he thought it over and then nodded. "Alright, check it out but make sure that you have it back before tomorrow morning, understood?" When Wyatt nodded, Daryl turned and left the area.

Wyatt sighed and put his head into his hands, he was far to tired to deal with all this. He was a cop, he didn't need the stress of some demons trying to kill his family on top of everything else. But his family needed him and his mother taught him to always put his family first above anything else and he would do anything for them no matter how stressful it was.

A shrink would probably have a field day with him.

Wyatt stood up and began to make his way out of the room, he needed to get that disk.

* * *

Tamora smiled and sniffed at the beautiful lily's that were on the shelf, the smell was almost as nice as the look of the flowers themselves. Tamora might not enjoy working in the garden centre it's self but the flowers were always a nice perk and being the manager not only paid well which she could save up but also gave her the experience she needed for her dream job.

Nearly six months ago, when on her way to go and meet Chris for coffee she had seen an empty shop that was up for sale and she couldn't resist going in for a peak, it wasn't a small shop through not a large one, it had a large bay mirror near the front door of the shop which let a great deal of sunlight and it made the empty glasses shine and showed the dust motes that held in the air.

She fell in love with it, ever since that day once every morning she would go and make sure that the shop was still on sale and she was always so relived to see that it was, she wanted to own her own shop. Something that was hers and hers alone which is why she continued to work here at the centre, the pay was the best thing about the job and if she kept up at this rate then she would be able to afford to buy the shop at the end of the year.

She was going to make it a magic shop, it would sell things like potion ingredients and actual magical artefacts and other magical supplies, she would sell other things like candles and packs of tarot cards for mortals and if they bought anything that could be used in an actual magical sense then she wouldn't stop mortals from buying it, it wasn't as if they could use them and she would never stock anything that was inherently dangerous.

She couldn't wait until she was out of here, she would be running her own shop before she knew it. She also knew that she could actually get it now if she truly wanted to, Chris was her favourite cousin and she knew that she was his, well, she probably shared the position with Kat but that was neither here nor there, if she asked him for a loan and she gave him the facts and figures she had gathered then he would have no problem giving her the money, he would be paying for less than half of it as well.

But she didn't want to ask him for a loan, she knew it was kind of stupid but she wanted to earn all the money to buy it by herself. Ever since she was a kid she had always been grouped together with her sister, which she understood they were twins after all but she had always had to share everything with her, she even still lived with her.

She loved her sister of course, it was her choice to move out with her and move in to their apartment together plus they had a special connection, literally. Ever since the two were born they had been able to read one another thoughts and sense each other's location. She supposed that some people would find such a thing odd but it had been there since she had been a baby, she didn't know how else to be.

But she wanted something that was all her own, that was all. She had even been carefully monitoring her own thoughts to make sure that Kat didn't pick up on anything about it, the self censoring of her own thoughts was a bit annoying to say the least but it was her only option. It wasn't like she could shut the connection off after all.

She made her way over to her office and walked in and sat behind her desk, she might not like working here all that much but she did love having her own office. She needed to order some more seed packets as well as more outdoor furniture.

She tried to focus on that but her thoughts kept drifting back to the breakfast, she wasn't worried about the demons so much as they had been able to deal with a lot worse in the past then just a random group of demons attacking them, no at that moment it wasn't the demons that worried her.

It was her brothers.

Henry JR and Robert, to be specific. She didn't know what was wrong with her younger brother other than the fact that apparently he had a fight with their parents about something and had been distant from the rest of them for some reason that she didn't understand, any attempt to reach out to them had been coldly rebuffed. When she and Kat had went to see him at his dorm room they had just slammed his door in their faces, it hurt because aside from Kat and Chris she was probably closest to Henry.

She knew why Robert was staying away from the rest of them however, as soon as he had finished high school he had decided to become a full time whitelighter and almost all of his time was now spent on his charges, their mom had called him but apparently he had been to busy to come.

And in that moment Tamora felt her anger build, in the past six months she had maybe seen her younger brother a grand total of four times and she was sick of it. It was clear to her that he was putting himself ahead of the rest of them, she understood following your own path, she was doing it herself after but she still made time for the rest of her family.

And she knew that being a whitelighter was a demanding job, she had her own charges after all but she still made time to work, spend time with her family and friends and eat and sleep as well as relax. The only reason she could see Robert taking on all these charges was because he didn't want to see them, even full time whitelighters weren't always with a charge.

She'd had more than enough. "Robert! Get your ass here right now or I will come up there and drag you down here by your ear, you know I'll do it so don't even think about testing me right now!"

It had the desired effect as in a shower of orbs Robert appeared, with his dark brown hair and eyes and his jar-shaped head he was probably the one who looked the most like their father. At the moment he had an annoyed expression on his face and his eyes narrowed into a glare as he looked at his sister. "Tam, what is it? I was in the middle of something."

"Do you even know what is going on down here? Or are you busy sniffing your own farts with the elders." Tamora asked and she nearly laughed at the look on her brother's face but she managed to hold it back, it certainly wouldn't help her make her point.

"Is there something you wanted Tamora? Or did you just call me to insult me?" Robert asked as he crossed his arms.

"Well, I would like to see my little brother a lot more for one, except for when I call him." Tamora said as she mirrored him by crossing her own arms. "Did you even know that Chris, Penny, Ryan, Victor and Peter were attacked the last night?"

That seemed to get through to him as Robert's eyes softened and he let his arms fall to his side. "I heard that something had happened but I knew you were all fine, the elders would've told me if anything had happened to you guys."

Tamora sighed and shook her head, she didn't want to get into an argument about it but the elders were not on their side but Robert had always believed differently for some reason. "Do the elders have any idea about who attacked them last night? We can't find anything in the book and most of the family is at magic school trying to find anything that we could use."

"Sorry, I don't know much more than you do. All I know is that the elder council has been in session since last night and no one knows what there talking about somethings got them spooked." Robert said with a shrug. "When I have something that I can tell you then I promise I'll let you know."

"Thanks." Tamora said before she sighed. "We've missed you, you know? We barely see you any more. Mom and Dad miss you."

Robert sighed heavily and shut his eyes. "Tamora, I can't spend all my time with you guys, I've got my own life to lead and I've got charges to take care off, now I need to get back. I'll be in touch." And before Tamora could say anything Robert disappeared in another shower of orbs.

Tamora sighed as she watched the orbs fade away. "I wish I could believe that little bro." Tamora whispered before she shook her head and sat back down at her desk, she had work to get back to and if she focused on that then she could keep her mind off of her family problems for a second.

* * *

Kat looked down at the clip board, the patient was a sixty-two year old man who had been in brought in last night due to a suspected heart attack and had to be closely monitored, she checked his blood pressure, heart rate and pulse and it seemed that they were in normal range She made notes and reattached the clipboard back to the bed frame and walked out of the room.

As soon as she closed the door behind her watch beeped and she looked down and smiled softly as she realised that she was at the end of her shift, she loved her job of course but she had felt a little bad about leaving her family to deal with it on their own even though she needed to come into work today.

She had been called away on countless family emergencies ever since she had started working here and the chief of staff had made it clear to her that if she didn't start making more of an effort in being committed to her job then she had better not come in at all.

She made her way to the nurse's centre and opened her locker and changed back into her normal clothes, she shut the locked and left the centre and made her way to the elevator, she would head to her and Tam's apartment and have a quick shower and then orb to magic school.

As soon as she arrived in front of the elevator she hit the call button and tapped her foot as she waited for it to arrived on this floor, as soon as the elevator arrived she hit the button for the underground parking lot and the elevator began to descended.

Kat hummed but she stopped when suddenly the temperature in the elevator dropped and she felt an intense pressure building behind her eyes, she realised what was about happened only a moment before it actually happened. With a sharp intake of breath she was thrust into the past.

The vision showed a group of twenty people in robes, they stood in an overgrown field and in front of a large purple portal that hovered in the air, the surface of the portal rippled and a large tentacle shot out of it and swung down at them.

The figures held up their hands a shimmering energy barrier appeared between them and blocked the tentacle, a scream of anger and rage echoed through the night and it caused Kat to shiver. The figures kept their hands raised up and chanted something in a language that she didn't realised and the portal slammed shut, the tentacle fell to the floor as it had been severed from whatever it had been connected to one the other side and purple blood painted the grass.

Kat came out of her vision and she was curled into the corner of the elevator, she didn't move from the corner even as the elevator arrived at the underground parking lot and the doors slid open, for a few moments she simply sat there and shook.

She had visions of the past before of course but they had never been like that before, she had never felt such a sense of utter dread before from one of her visions.

And so, despite trying to stop it, she began to cry.

* * *

"Alright everyone, that's it for today." The professor said as she began to pack her papers away into her briefcase. "I hope to see you all tomorrow."

Melinda began put her stuff away into her backpack and stood out of her chair, she had been glad that she had decided to not skip this class. She hated skipping any of her classes but she really hadn't wanted to skip this one as it had been really helpful to her.

She was going to be an architect and nothing was going to stop her, not even a bunch of demons.

She made her way down the hallways of the collage, once she was in her dorm room she would orb over to magic school and help the others. Before she could reach her room however there was a shout from behind her and she smiled when she saw Jacob, her boyfriend rushing over to her.

"Hey babe!" Jacob pulled her into a hug and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "You missed me?" He asked with a smirk.

"Didn't you see me this morning, and last night?" Melinda said with a grin.

"I'm allowed to miss you aren't I, listen. How do you feel about going out tonight?" Jacob asked. "There's something I want to show you tonight, it's something that will change your life. I promise."

Melinda bit her lip for a moment, she knew that she shouldn't because she promised that she would help study but the entire family was going to be there, they could mange without her this one time. She would send a text to Chris to explain to the others.

"Sure, why not?" She said with a grin, her mind already made up.

"Cool, I'll pick you up at eight?" Jacob asked and Melinda nodded and after saying farewell and Melinda began to walk back to her dorm room.

Jacob watched her walk of for a moment before his smile disappeared and glanced down at his wrist, where a mark of nine interlocking snakes surrounding a door was tattooed on to his wrist and he sneered. "Soon witch, very soon."

* * *

Chris looked at the list in his hands and sighed heavily, the club was not doing as well as the restaurant had been and as much as he hated to admit it might be time to shut the club down though he hated to do that, he had only taken over the club at the start of the year and now it was nearly ready to close.

He couldn't help but blame himself, the club had been doing fine before he took over. His mother had slaved to make the club a success and now it was barely making enough money to make it worth keeping open, his mother would never forgive him when she found out.

Chris looked up when he saw the manager Hannah come out of the office, he supposed that some people would blame her considering that she was directly in charge but he knew it wasn't her fault, she had been the manger of P3 for five years and she hadn't done anything differently this year then she had any of the others so it wasn't her fault.

"If it's alright boss I am going to head off and come back tonight." Hannah said and Chris nodded with a weak smile. "Don't worry kid, the club's had a lot of bad days in the past. This'll pass as well."

"Thanks Hannah, I'll see you later on tonight." Chris said and Hannah walked over to the stairs and left the club, Chris sighed and put his focus back on to the papers in front of him. His head shot up when he heard the sound of air rippling around him and looked up to see it shimmering in front of him and three demons suddenly appearing.

"Kill him." The lead demon, a woman dressed in a leather vest and pants that disturbingly reminded him a little of Bianca, and her bare arms were covered in tattoos. One of the other demons, a bald man with the same mark as the demon from last night under his eye, threw an energy ball at him.

Chris yelled and duck behind the bar, he breathed heavily and closed his eyes and focused as he heard the two demons approaching the bar. An astral projection of himself appeared behind the two demons and he grinned. "Hey! Assholes!" He shouted and threw a bolt of lightening at the same demon who had thrown an energy ball at him.

As the bolt connected with him he screamed as he burst into flames, the astral projection vanished and Chris popped out from behind the bad and threw a second bolt towards the second demon who could only scream in surprised and pain as he was vanquished as it connected with his back.

The female demon threw out her palm and a stream of fire shot towards Chris who quickly raised his palm to his mouth and blew, a could of ice particles shout out and smothered the flames. Chris threw another blast of lightening towards the demon who ducked out of the way and glared up at him.

"This isn't over witch, I'll be back!" And with that the demon shimmered away and Chris panted in relief for a few moments and shut his eyes, this was all the proof he needed. That attack last night was not a random one, he needed to get to magic school as soon as possible.

Chris grabbed his coat and ran over to the stairs and quickly left the club.

* * *

In a dark part of the underworld, where none had stepped for tens of thousands of years, a figure in a black robe sat on a throne made of twisted grey metal. His eyes were milky and unseeing.

The demon who had failed to kill Chris appeared in a shimmer and with a gulp she knelt in front of the figure and bowed her head. "Forgive me my lord, I was unable to kill the witch. He is more powerful than we expected."

The demon stood from the throne and the female demon shivered as she felt the ancient power that radiated of off him. "I gave you an order Jana, and you failed me." He held up his and it began to glow purple.

"My lord, please! I beg of you!" Jana shouted as she stared at him for a moment, after a few tense seconds the ancient demon lowered his hand and Jana let out a desperate sob of relief.

"Consider yourself lucky that I do not have enough of you to spare, now, leave me." The demon ordered and Jana did not dare to test his patience and quickly shimmered away.

He hated that he had to rely on disgusting hybrids like Jana, he used to command glorious armies for his queen but now he was trapped and in hiding but he wouldn't have to wait much longer.

 _"Soon my queen, so we shall be together once more and I shall give you this world."_

End of chapter five.

* * *

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	6. Chapter 6

Charmed:

The Next Generation.

Season One.

Episode One.

Chapter Six.

Penny sighed again as she mindlessly stared down at the page of the book in front of her, she did not think she had ever been this bored in her entire life. She understood why what they were doing was important, she supposed. She just didn't understand why she had to help with it consider nearly the entire family was already here looking through this thick books already.

It wasn't like they had much to go anyway, a group of demons with low-level powers and a weird mark on one of their faces that just happened to be the same as the one on a black disk found near a murdered woman's body? Chances were they were a low level gang that had killed that woman and on the adrenaline had decided to risk an attack on the manor.

At least, that was what she wanted to believe because that would get her out of here a lot quicker.

She glanced around the table and couldn't stop the urge of irritation she felt, Wyatt, Chris, Melinda, Kat and Tamora were still not here. PJ had shown up about an hour or so ago all through she hadn't said much of anything since she arrived, all she revealed was that the woman who had been killed last night was a co-worker from the Bay Mirror, since then all she had done was look through her books to try and find anything, a small determined frown on her face.

If anything Penny thought that simply proved her theory, they had killed a witch that had known a child of a charmed one and they thought that if they could do that then they could take care of them. Clearly, they had proved them wrong on that score.

With another heavy sigh she began to mindlessly flip through the pages of the book, not even bothering to look at what was in front of her anymore. She wouldn't be the one to find anything even if there was anything to find.

She stopped flipping through the book when a hand curled around her wrist gently, she looked up and met eyes with Ryan who was looking straight at her as he raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?" He asked with eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Why do you care? Don't tell me you actually want to be here? You hate being a witch." Penny pointed out in a hushed whisper and it wasn't just because she was in a library but because she didn't want her mother, who was standing at the head of the table and moving her own head left and right like it was goddamned spotlight, to overhear her, she knew for a fact she would chew her out if she thought she was slacking off.

"No, I don't want to be here but the more you put it off then the longer you are going to be here. As soon as we find some answers then the sooner we can get out of here." Ryan pointed out and Penny had to blink, she hated to admit but her brother was actually right. If she hurried then she might be able to find what they were looking for or at least prove they weren't going to find anything in these books and then be able to get going.

She had planned to go and see a movie with her friends tonight but the attack and this impromptu family study session had screwed that plan up, she wasn't like Ryan. She didn't hate being a witch at all but she did hate how it often interfered with her personal life, she knew that as a witch she had duties and responsibilities to protect the innocent and all that and they did do a lot of good.

But it almost never seemed to end, these past couple of weeks had been great because it almost felt like the universe had been giving them something of a break, she had been able to hang out with her friends a lot more, she had even managed to get a job! Well, okay it was helping the old lady across the street clean up her house but it was something and she didn't have to run off half the time for family emergencies which had not been conductive to keeping her other jobs when ever she managed to get one.

She turned her attention back to the book but she didn't manage to keep it on the tome for very long, and it wasn't her fault this time but it was due to the fact that the sound of someone orbing in and had drawn it away from what she was meant to be doing but to be fair everyone had turned to see who had just arrived in the library.

The orbs had formed into both of her elder brothers, Wyatt looked angrier than usual and Chris just looked annoyed with their brother which, to be honest, was a third of the time anyway so that in all honesty did not surprise her.

"What's wrong?" Their mother asked with a frown, she had gotten used to picking up on a lot subtle cues when ever any of her children were upset or they were having any problems and at the moment neither Wyatt or Chris were being very subtle. "Come on, out with it."

"Oh, you know Mom. Nothing much." Wyatt said and Penny had to hide a smirk, if it was anyone else speaking then Penny knew that they would probably want the sarcasm in their voice heard but Penny knew that her eldest brother was just really bad at it and was actually trying to be subtle about it, she then realised that her entire family sucked at subtlety. "Just that Chris got attacked by demons again and didn't bother to call!"

And just like that all the amusement that Penny had been feeling seemed to drain away from her, it was true that she honestly didn't think this demon attack was that big a deal but the fact that her big brother had been attacked scared her, Chris was not her favourite sibling to be sure and it did irritate her that he didn't feel like he needed any help if he got attacked, but he was still her brother and the thought of losing him made her heart clench.

He was always going to be her brother, no matter what.

"What!?" It was her father who had shouted and that surprised Penny as she watched him get to his feet as he stared at his son. "Chris, have you lost your mind? When you get attack you call for help, it doesn't matter if it's only one low level demon. You call for help!" His voice had raised and Penny had to admit she was shocked at her father's display.

Leo Wyatt wasn't a man to yell when he was angry or frustrated, he simply got quiet. You know when he disappointed him but he almost never yelled, if he was yelling now then he had to be extremely upset but if truth be told then Penny knew that if anyone could get this reaction out of their father then it would be Chris. It was the worst kept secret in the entire family that Chris was their parents favourite.

He was going to get the club, he was going to get the restaurant. Hell, he already owned half of both them and would get the other half when their mother died. He was probably going to get the manor as well which would surprise her while the rest of them were forced to manage on their own.

She knew that wasn't fair and she was probably being a little bitter but it was kind of hard not to be when she saw how Chris got treated, she knew her parents loved them all the same of course but sometimes it was hard to remember that. When ever Chris got so much as a scrape then their parents would fawn over him and carry him to bed and make him soup and the rest of them had to break a bone to get half as much attention from them.

And there she was being bitter again.

"I handled it, what's the big deal?" Chris muttered as he glanced down at his feet, he was as surprised as she was about their father's behaviour and it was clear that it unnerved him a great deal, their parents may have been overprotective of him but they rarely if ever actually yelled at him. "Anyway, you're missing the important part. Yes, I was attacked but I was attacked by more of the same group of demons from last night."

"Are you sure?" Phoebe asked as she crossed her arms and leaned forward.

"Yes, one of them had the same mark as the other demons." Chris said as he stepped towards the table and sat down at it, Wyatt followed him and sat next to him. "Anyone found anything on them yet?"

"Not yet." Adam muttered as he looked from his book and shrugged his shoulders to try and undo a knot that had formed. "I mean, it's not like we've got that much to go on. I mean we have that symbol but isn't much, it could be anything in any book and it's not in the more obvious ones and there are thousands of books in here.",

"We've already looked through Symbols and Sigils and Ancient Runes through out the Ages." Patience chimed in, looking up from her book and flipping her long brown hair behind her back. "Nothing that matches what you described."

"The woman who was killed last night was someone I worked with." PJ said although she did not shift her gaze from the book in front of her. "There is no way in hell that's not connected with us, I don't like this."

Chris frowned heavily but didn't say anything, he simply reached out and picked up a book from the large heaped they had pilled on to the table beforehand and began to flip through it. Wyatt sat on the opposite side from him and picked up a book to look through as well. Their mother suddenly frowned as she noticed something.

"Where's your sister?" Piper asked as she realised that of her seven children only her eldest daughter was absent, she couldn't help but be worried because if someone or something was targeting her family then Mel could've been attacked as well.

Wyatt and Chris suddenly grinned the same grin and despite how different the two looked in that moment you could sincerely believe they were brothers, and then in an almost synchronised movement they pointed a finger to Penny who in return gave them both a rather less the gracious movement in reply with her middle finger.

Piper watched her children with an expression that was equal parts annoyance and amusement, her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. "Very funny, seriously boys. Do you actually know where she is?"

"She has a date." Chris said with a shrug and small frown, he wasn't exactly the stereotypical overprotective big brother who threatened to beat someone to death with a shovel if they said even a single bad word about his sister but that didn't mean he was particularly happy with who she was dating either. "She sent off a text and she turned her phone off before I could reply and it's not like I could orb and get her if she was with him."

"It's that Jacob boy, isn't it?" Leo asked and then grunted in annoyance when both his sons nodded, he said nothing but it was clear to all of them that the man disapproved though they didn't know if it was due to his daughter dating at all or just who she was dating at the moment.

Penny had to admit that she didn't really like Jacob much either, she wasn't entirely sure why but she always got the feeling that there was something...off, about him. No one else ever seemed to notice or said anything and Mel seemed to like him well enough so she had kept her mouth shut.

She had to admit though, now she wished she had said something that would've made him been kicked to the damn curb, how was it fair that she could just shrug off coming here? She had to be hear and doing this stupid search, why did Mel get a pass?

"Oh!" Wyatt exclaimed and everyone turned their attention to him as he began to dig into one of the coats of his pockets and then pulled out a small black disk about the size of a coaster. "Remember the disk I told you all about, I managed to check it out of evidence. Maybe it'll help." He said with a shrug as he placed the black disk in the centre of the table.

Phoebe reached out and picked up the disk, holding it in her hands for a few moments with her eyes scrunched tight in concentration as she tried to get a vision from the thing, a few seconds later and she suddenly jolted like she had been shocked with electricity and her eyes shot wide open as the disk slipped from her hands and collided with the table, ratting until it came to a stop.

For a few moments no one spoke, the only noise that was heard in the grand library of Magic School was Phoebe's heavy breathing. "Whoa." She breathed.

"Mom, you okay?" Priscilla asked as she reached out and rubbed her mother's shoulder to try and calm her down. "What did you see?"

"I didn't see anything, I felt like I was getting a vision but then there was just this really intense pain. It felt like my skull was going to split open." Phoebe said, his voice unnerved and uncertain as she stared at the small black disk. "It was almost like...I don't know, like it was trying to fight me."

No one knew what exactly to say to that, there had certainly been times when someone within the family had not been able to get visions off of an object before when they needed to but never had an object actually been resisting trying to get a vision from it. What exactly were they dealing with here? Suddenly Penny found herself thinking that perhaps in the end it had been a good idea to actually study up on this.

The silence was finally broken by the sound of orbing, Tamora and Kat formed from the shower of orbs and stepped forward. Kat had her head rested on Tamora's shoulder and it was clear that Tamora was helping her sister to walk. "What happened!?" Henry shouted as he jumped out his seat and came around to help his younger daughter into a seat.

"I had a vision, it was awful." Kat said as her sister and father helped her to sit down. "I saw...I'm not entirely sure what it was, there were people in robes in a field and there was like a portal, floating up from the ground and a tentacle shot out of it and tried to attack them and they, they did something? It must've been a spell or a ritual because then the portal shut and the tentacle was severed."

"I found her in the hospital elevator, she was just sitting there shivering and holding herself, she was terrified." Tamora said as she rubbed her twin's back, Penny was of course aware of the magical connection that the two girls shared but she wasn't sure how she would be able to handle it if one of her siblings was inside her head all of the time, it wasn't like they could turn it off or block it either.

Still, the twins never complained about it. Maybe it was because they had never known any differently.

"Do you think your vision might be connected to what's happening?" Paige asked her younger daughter gently, Kat had been gifted with the power to see the past and they all knew how often it bared down on to her. When you had the power to see terrible things in the future you could at least comfort yourself by saying that you had a chance to prevent it from happening, of changing it.

Being only able to see the past meant that you had to be faced with the knowledge that no matter how much that you wished you could, there was nothing that you could do to change it. It was in the past, it happened. It was a fact.

And there was nothing you could do to change it. You couldn't change the past.

"I think so, I mean I was just in the elevator and I didn't touch anything. It just came to me." Kat said with a small shrug and she pulled her coat close to herself, as if trying to warm herself up. "And visions don't just come to me, to any of us, at random if I don't touch something, they come to me because someone high up wants me to see something."

Penny knew that was true enough, she had never just received a vision, not at random. She was either touching something, an event she had witness triggered it or the powers that be wanted them to see something.

"I found it!" Peter's happy and excited cry made them all jump from their chairs and they all turned to look at him, the youngest Halliwell smiled happily as held up the open book and, true to his word, there it was on top right corner of the page the book was opened to, the same symbol that the demons had been using and was on the disk.

"Good work kiddo." Leo said with a smile as he ruffled Peter's hair.

"The symbol of Kenatral." PJ read as she came around to Peter's side. "Used commonly by the Order of...Kenatral." PJ blinked slowly and then shrugged. "Should've figured that." She muttered before she went back to reading.

"The Order of Kenatral is an ancient order that worshiped an ancient demon queen named Kenatral, said to have been spawned from all man's darkest dreams, Kenatral began a campaign of conquest through multiple dimensions. All the armies of all these worlds fell before her might and the might of her armies."

"Before long her empire spanned a hundred different dimensions which Kenatral ruled from her home dimension, before long she turned her sights to this dimension. An invasion attempt was made, a thousand of her legions marched on to it. However a thousand witches and other magical creatures formed an alliance to stand against her."

"A ritual was conducted to slam down the barrier that connected this world to her realm was slammed shut."

"That's what I saw! At least, I think it was." Kat interrupted.

PJ nodded before she continued to read. "The invasion was ended but at least a thousand of her demons were trapped on this side of the barrier, since that day these demons and their descendants have been hunted down by witches and hunters."

"However, the Order has endured to this day. There are dark whispers that they are planning a dark ritual which will rip open the barrier and allow them to return to their queen." PJ finished reading and looked around the table, which had suddenly grown very quiet.

Penny said nothing, simply walked around the table and gazed down at the page. Reading the text in her head, she reached out and brushed her fingers over the picture of the symbol on the book, with a sudden gasp of breath she was thrown into a vision.

She saw Melinda standing in the middle of the a large dusty warehouse with her arms crossed, a suspicious expression on her face. From behind her Jacob crept up, a dagger in his hand which he suddenly raised and plunged down towards her.

Penny came out of the vision with a scream, falling over and banging her head hard against the floor. Before the world turned to blackness all she could hear was her family calling her name and the last thing that she could remember was that on Jacob's wrist was a tattoo of the same mark that had been on the disk and the demons that had been attacking them.

End of Chapter Six.

* * *

 **Please follow, favourite and review. The next chapter should be the conclusion of this episode.**


	7. Chapter 7

Charmed:

The Next Generation.

Season One.

Episode One.

Chapter Seven.

Melinda smiled into the mirror in front of her, she may not be a model but she cleaned up well enough. She wasn't blind to the fact that all things considered she was quite pretty but when compared to PJ or to Kat or to Tamora she always felt plain. But none of them were here and Jacob never even looked at them.

He always said that he only had eyes for her and he always made her believe it, Melinda brushed a look of her blond hair behind her ear and did a quick turn in front of the mirror to make absolutely sure that she looked okay. She had changed out of her clothes from collage and had changed into a white button up shirt and a black skirt with sensible heels, she weaved a blue ribbon through her hair to add a bit of colour and the blue went well with her blond hair.

She looked damn good, if she said so herself.

The sound of the doorbell rang all through out the manor and Melinda had to stop herself from running out the door and down the stairs, she didn't want to seem too eager after all. She got to the front doors and pulled them open and were met by a large bouquet of white and red roses.

"Wow, you're kind of cliché and really sweet so I can let that first part slide." Melinda said with a gentle smile as she reached out and took the bouquet, stepped out of the doorway so Jacob could walk in, her was dressed in a white cotton shirt, blue jeans and a black leather jacket.

"I can never get over how fancy this place is, are you sure you really live here?" Jacob asked as he followed Melinda into the kitchen and found a pitcher which she filled with water and then placed the flowers inside of it.

"I think there's a back handed insult in there somewhere." Melinda snarked as she turned to face him with a grin. "And it's not that fancy, in fact sometimes it's days from falling apart. It's a good thing that Dad's a handyman and taught me everything I know cause without us? This place would probably be a pile of termite infested wood by now."

"You can do house repair?" Melinda tried not to feel offended at the sound of disbelief in her boyfriend's voice, was it so hard to believe that she could fix things just because she was a woman? If it weren't for her and her father then summers in the manor would be almost impossible to live in, it got hot extremely easily in the old building.

She remembered the time she had decided she would become an architect, even though she hadn't known the word or what it meant when she had been younger. It was an unusually hot summer even for San Francisco and the air conditioner had broken down and her dad had taken the unit off the wall so that he could fix it, Wyatt had been playing outside and Chris had been in the kitchen with their mother, helping her to make ice cold strawberry milkshakes to cool them off so it had just been her with him.

It had been the most wonderful thing she had ever seen as he had opened the large white box up and pulled everything that made it work out, dozens of tiny little parts inside such a big contraption that all worked together to get to a desired result. Was it so odd that she found that so beautiful? When her father had finally managed to get it working again she was embarrassed to remember that she actually cheered.

But that day had set the course for her life, whenever something was broken and her father had to fix it she would always volunteer to help him. At first it had been simple things that he didn't really need her to do, such as handing him his tools and holding them when he didn't need them any more but from that she had learn the names of all the tools that she didn't already know and what they could be used for.

It didn't take long for her father to notice that she did have a genuine interest in what he was doing and she actually wanted to learn how to do it herself, Melinda loved her father but he could be really old fashioned sometimes which she supposed made a bit of sense considering he had been born in the twenties before he had died.

Melinda suddenly realised that her life was kind of odd.

Still, her father had been willing enough to help her learn since it was clear that his sons had no interest in picking up the trade and he wanted to pass it down to someone as he had already passed down being a whitelighter to his children. So, what started as just holding his tools while he worked became him teaching her the names of all the components that were held in whatever had decided to break down that week.

Soon, she was able to fix the air conditioning by herself and then went on to fixing light switches and the radiators and one time even the boiler. Soon enough her father had gotten to the age where climbing up ladders and getting down on his knees so Melinda had to take over as the official handywoman of the manor and she had never been more happy when that responsibility had passed on to her.

What she hadn't expected was how busy it would keep her, she hadn't spent all her free time helping him fix everything that broke in the manor as she had her own friends to go out with and plans and her witch duties kept her pretty busy but when the responsibility of making sure that the manor wouldn't come crashing down around them fell to her what little free time she had been cut to ribbons.

It made sense considering how old the manor was, it had been built in the twenties and had been destroyed by an earthquake and then had to be rebuilt and that was on top of it being just a very old house so of course there was always something that had to be fixed and combine that with demon attacks and spells gone awry and the fact that her mother wouldn't allow them to use magic to fix anything that went wrong with the manor then she suddenly realised why her father was so eager to pass the skills on to someone.

Oh, but she loved it. She loved every time something went wrong with the old house and she loved fixing it, learning all about the manor as she did so. How beautiful it was, how utterly perfect it's design was. She would kill for a look at the original blueprints, her love for architecture had grown when she realised she didn't want to fix one beautiful house, she wanted to make beautiful houses.

"Yeah, I can. How do you think I got into architecture in the first place?" She tried to keep the bitterness and slight anger she was feeling out of her voice but it sounded to her own ears that she didn't succeed and going by the look on Jacob's face it was obvious she hadn't succeeded. "Sorry, a lot of guys get all weird when they find out I can fix stuff up, like, seriously. What does it matter that I know how to fix a radiator and can replace windows if they get broken, does that somehow make me any less of a girl?"

"I didn't mean to make you angry, I'm sorry." Melinda sighed, she suddenly felt like a complete ass and she didn't even understand why she had gotten angry in the first place. Jacob had meant to be a dick, he was just being curious and like always she had taken it completely the wrong way and nearly bit his head off.

"You didn't make me angry, I just...it can be kind of tough you know? There aren't a lot of girls in my class and most the guys don't say anything, they don't care or aren't bothered but there is always that one dick who thinks they are being so fucking clever when they point out that I'm doing something that isn't normally considered to be a thing that girls do. Oh, and while most guys might not be dicks about it they are far more guys who think that just because I'm one of the few girls in that class that gives them a license to hit on me when all I want to do is focusing on learning."

After finally taking a breath Melinda noticed something odd, Jacob wasn't saying anything. He was only listening to her, most people would try and get her to calm down or interrupt her or worse, try to defend the people who bothered her or said she was getting angry over something that did not matter. Jacob did not do any of that, Jacob simply listened as she ranted.

She to admit, it was nice to know that someone was at least listening to her for a change. Her anger slowly started to drain away and she found herself blushing slightly as she realised how eat up she had gotten over such a little thing. "Anyway, you came over for a date and not to hear me rant. Where are we going to go?"

"It's a surprise, remember?" Jacob said with a smirk as he stepped forward and put his hands on her hips, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to her lips, Melinda hummed and nuzzled into his neck.

"Do you remember that I said that I don't like surprises?" Melinda breathed as she relaxed into his embrace, she liked this a lot. She wanted more of this, to be held and kissed and loved and Jacob. She wanted Jacob. There was another family breakfast in the morning, maybe she could invite him to that.

"Trust me, you'll love this one. You do trust me, right?" Jacob asked as he kissed her cheek and Melinda nodded, Jacob pulled away but kept hold of her hand and began to lead her out of the manor, Melinda switched off the lights and locked the door as they left. She slid into passanger side seat of Jacob's car and looked out the window as it pulled away from the curb.

It was a perfect night.

* * *

Chris let out a sigh of relief as Penny finally started to come around, his baby sister could be a colossal pain in his ass but he had never been more terrified then when he had watched her collapsed after having a vision. He knew that visions could sometimes be violent to the people who received them but it was rare for them to actually be so traumatising for them to knock the receiver over, when she had banged her head hard against the floor he'd been terrified.

Penny's eyes fluttered open and she let out a low groan as she pressed her hand to her forehead, their mother held a glass of water to her lips which Penny took some deeps sips from, when her mother pulled the glass away she spoke in a low whisper. "Did anyone catch the licence number of that truck that hit me?" She said with a low chuckle.

"Are you okay, Princess?" Leo asked as he sat down next to her on the sofa, gently stroking her hair. Penny nodded after a few moments of breathing before she asked her parents to help her up.

"What did you see, you got knocked out." Wyatt asked as he knelt down in front of her.

"I...I saw Mel, she was in the middle of a building. I think it was a warehouse or something like that. Then her boyfriend Jacob came up behind her and he, oh god, he had a knife. And he was going to stab her with it!" Penny cried as she finished describing what she saw, tears running down her cheeks. "Oh god, on his wrist. It was that mark, the same one on the disk!"

There was a sudden panic in the library and everyone was shouting over everyone else to try and make themselves heard, it was a cacophony of noise where not even a single word could be made out. Chris rolled his eyes before he stuck his fingers into his mouth and summoned the most powerful whistle he could manage, the sharp noise at least made everyone shut up and turn their attention to him but it did leave him somewhat breathless.

"Thank you, now listen up. Penny needs to stay here because she might have a concussion, no arguments." Chris snapped when it looked as if his younger sister was about to argue, Penny at least seemed to take his order and shut her mouth as soon as she had opened it, clearly not in the mood to fight either. "Dad, you should stay as well to keep an eye on her with Uncle Henry and Uncle Coop."

It was a lot of people to keep an eye on one person but it made a nice pretext, the real reason was that if there were demons involved then their fathers had to stay out of the firing line as Leo and Henry didn't have any powers and while Coop did have some they weren't meant for combat, he was a cupid after all. The sad truth was that even the younger kids were of more use, not that Chris would ever say that out loud of course.

"Victor and Peter should stay as well." His mother suggested and Chris nodded, he was just about to suggest that himself. Victor and Peter both had powers of their own but Victor's weren't overly offensive and Peter's were quite weak compared to the rest of them and on top of that they were two of the youngest members of the family, Peter was only eight, no one wanted them in any danger.

Parker and Peyton would be staying behind as well, Parker didn't have any powers what so ever and Peyton was too young to deal with demons yet, plus the only witch powers that Peyton had were levitation and the power to project her levitation on to other people. Both useful powers in their own right but they could do without them and she was still too young.

"Right, now I assume that I'm not the only one that can't sense Melinda?" Sensing was a power that came with being a whitelighter, normally they could only sense their charges but it had mixed with their witch side and now anyone with the power to sense in their family could sense anyone in their family. As Chris had been talking he had been trying to sense Melinda but he hadn't been able too.

His older brother, his younger brother, his cousins from Aunt Paige and his Aunt Paige herself all shook their heads. "Wait." Penny asked as she sat up on the sofa after their father had made her lie back down, her eyes were wide and her voice was fearful. "If we can't sense Melinda then doesn't that mean she's..."

Penny trailed off and Chris knew why, she didn't want to say it as much as the rest of them didn't want to hear it. The only time a whitelighter couldn't sense one of their charges was when they were no longer their charge, the only way that could happen was when the whitelighter had fulfilled their duty to their charge, the charge had been reassigned or in the worst case; the charge had died.

"It doesn't mean anything, you wouldn't get a vision if it didn't mean we couldn't save her. Jacob could be masking her somehow, if we can't find her by sensing then we'll just have to find her by scrying." Chris decided not to mention that if Jacob could somehow hide her from their sensing then he could probably hide her from being scried for as well because he didn't want to worry anyone because if scrying failed then he didn't know what they could try to find her.

The plans were sent and soon all but Leo, Henry, Coop, Peyton, Penny, Parker, Victor and Peter all disappeared into either showers of orbs or flashes of pink light.

* * *

Melinda looked up at the tall abandoned building with a frown, it was an old warehouse that clearly hadn't been used for decades. Melinda wasn't an expert by any means, she didn't go out on dates much, but she was fairly sure that an abandoned warehouse that looked like it was riddled with asbestos and likely to give her tetanus just from standing inside of it was not the best place for a date.

"You aren't seriously expecting me to go in there, right? It looks like it's about to fall down!" Melinda let out a nervous laugh as she looked back at Jacob, half expecting him to laugh in her face and tell her that it was just a dumb prank and really they were going to that really nice Chinese restaurant which overlooked the river.

No such luck unfortunately, Jacob simply smiled warmly and reached down to thread their fingers together. "You trust me, right? Well, trust me when I say that it is not going to fall down and when you are inside you're entire life is going to change."

Something was wrong, Melinda wasn't so stupid and wasn't so blind as to not notice that. Who would take her to a warehouse that no one had been to in years, the health issues alone were enough to make her head spin. If she had any sense she would freeze him now and orb away.

But she didn't want to do that, for one if she was wrong that she would've exposed her magic to him and that would casus an entire barrel full of problems but the main reason was, she wanted to be wrong. She liked Jacob, she liked him a lot. Melinda didn't want to think that he was going to hurt her.

So, she would go along with this. She could be wrong after all, there could be something great inside and if she was wrong then she would simply keep an eye on him and if she saw something that she didn't like then she would freeze him and orb and she would deal with the problems later.

"Alright, don't make me regret this." Melinda said and when he saw Jacob beam at her as he began to pull her into the warehouse she almost forgot all of her concerns, the doors of the warehouse let out a scream of protest as Jacob pushed them open and that set of a warning sign in Melinda's head right off.

If there really was a surprise in there for her then why did the doors sound like they hadn't been opened in years? Melinda's hands began to twitch as they always did when she was nervous, she channelled her power through her hands so moving her hands made her feel safe as powers had always kept her safe.

"So, where is this surprise then?" Melinda asked as she followed where he lead her, they came to a large open space with a few books, planks and wooden crates scattered about. She pulled her hand free from Jacob and stepped forward into the clearing, it was better to hide her wet eyes from him, she crossed her arms to give herself some comfort.

"Right here." Melinda spun around and jumped back just in time for the silver athame with a red jewel in it's hilt to only slice through the air. Melinda flicked out wrists and expected the traitors bastard to stop like a statue but all that happened was that the jewel in the hilt glowed with a soft light and Jacob smirked at her. "Nice try, witch."

"What are you, why are you doing this?" Melinda spat as she leaned forward, both to get closer to him and to make it easier for her to reach for one of those long planks. "Are you the one that killed those women?"

"You aren't quite as dumb as you look, are you Mel?" Jacob twirled his Athame around in his hand as he stepped forward, a cruel smirk on his face. "For whatever it's worth, it isn't anything personal. But I have a duty, a destiny." He used his free hand to pull down his sleeve and Melinda's eyes widened as she saw the mark on his wrist, it was the same one that Chris had described. "Your death is a part of it, thirteen witches killed on the day before, the day during and the day after the full moon. The first trial will be completed, and the day that the path home will be unlocked will be one step closer."

Melinda said nothing, simply kept staring at him before she let out a sigh before quickly ducking down and scooping up a long plank and swinging it at his wrist, Jacob let out a pained cry and Melinda swung at his face but Jacob held up his arm to block it and the long piece of wood shattered into splinters, Melinda dropped the broken piece of wood and turned and ran for it, deeper inside the warehouse.

* * *

Chris nibbled at his lip as the crystal circled the map, he had been scrying for close to ten minutes and there was still nothing no matter how much he tried, they were running out of time. He glanced over his shoulder at everyone else in the attic, his mother and Wyatt were pacing back and forth and up and down, Ryan was sitting down on Aunt Pearl's old couch, Aunt Phoebe was doing her best to keep everyone's sprits up and Aunt Paige was standing at the book stand, flipping through the ancient tomb.

Kat and Tamora were standing off to the side, speaking to one another about something or other. PJ was looking down at her phone, she had been trying to get in touch with Melinda that way but while it had rung twice it was turned off after those two rings and that had just made everyone more anxious.

Owen and Adam were standing off to one side as well but they weren't speaking, the only family members who weren't accounted for were Henry Junior and Robert.

"Anything?" Wyatt asked as he stopped pacing and walked over to stand next to Chris, his eyes were alive with worry. Dancing like blue flames for a moment as he stared down at the map of San Francisco that Chris had spread out over the table.

"No, Mel's being blocked somehow. And she has to be blocked because if she was-" The word caught in Chris's throat and he had to roughly swallow before he could continue. "If Melinda was gone then the crystal would still be able to land on...on where her body is, the fact that she's still being blocked kind of suggests that she still needs to be blocked from us and the only reason I can think that is because they still don't want us to find her."

"Or, she's dead and these bastards are a playing a sick game with us." The despair in Wyatt's voice was tangible and Chris honestly didn't know what he could say that might comfort him, he wasn't in the right place to comfort him anyway and so Chris simply turned his full attention back on to the map. Melinda would be fine, she had to be fine.

A few more tense moments passed and Chris felt like he was ready to cry, there was still nothing and his wrist felt like it was about to fall off but then, the crystal landed on a spot on the map and Chris let out a noise that could only be described as mix between a sob and a laugh. Soon his entire family was crowding around him and looking down at the spot on the map where the crystal was pointing.

"Is that a warehouse?" PJ asked as she stared down at it.

"Who cares what it is? We know where it is and that's where Melinda is, let's go!" Wyatt shouted before he dissolved into a cloud of orbs but before anyone could follow him the cloud of orbs returned and reformed into Wyatt who crashed down to the ground with a grunt of pain.

"What the hell happened?" Piper asked as she knelt down next to her eldest child and helped him up to his feet with a loud grunt.

"I'm not sure, I think I was about to form into the warehouse but there was some kind of barrier in the way. I must've hit and bounced back here." Wyatt said as he walked to stand next to his younger brother. "I guess we're driving."

"Well then, let's get going." Piper exclaimed and everyone turned their attention on to her. "Wyatt and Chris are going to come with me, I want everyone else to stay here. You're the back up if we need you."

Phoebe and Paige nodded and their children all let out mutters of varying agreement but Ryan did not seem happy. "Mom, let me come with you. Mel's my sister as well and I can help."

"I know you can sweetheart, but we don't want you in any danger. Just stay here for me." Piper placated but Ryan simply let out a scoff and walked away to face the attic windows, Piper shot a look at Paige who nodded before she turned and went to talk to her nephew. Piper turned back to face her eldest children. "All right, let's get going."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Melinda bit her bottom lip tightly, trying as hard as she could to not make any noise whatsoever, only allowing herself to breath through her nose. She was crouched down and hiding in-between a pile of wooden pallets and a wooden crate. Jacob was stalking around but she didn't know exactly where he was, she could try and make a run for it but he could just be waiting for her outside of her line of sight.

Still, she couldn't stay here forever. Jacob would find her eventually and if he did know where she was then his patience would soon run out and he would rip the wooden pallets away and end her life. She had to go.

She burst from the pallets and run towards the entrance, she heard the sound of a fireball flying towards her and she spun around and threw up her hands to freeze it in mid air. She wasn't able to freeze the shape that tackled her down to the ground. Jacob smirked and held up his knife to her face. "Sorry babe, like I said. Nothing personal."

He raised his athame and was about to plunge it down in to her chest, Melinda shut her eyes and turned her head away but she opened her eyes when she heard Jacob let out a scream of shock and Melinda saw him being thrown through the air. "Crystals! Circle!" After the words were shouted out five crystals surrounded Jacob and an energy cage shoot up around.

"Melinda! Sweetheart!" Melinda turned her head to see her mother running over to her with her big brothers following behind her, her mother helped her up and pulled her into a hug. "Are you alright?"

"I'm okay, thanks for the save." Melinda muttered as she relaxed into her mother's embrace for a few moments before she pulled away from her. She turned to face Jacob and forced a smirk on to her face even as her heart was still in the process of shattering. "I believe this is called a reversal of fortune."

"You think you've won? You think that you're safe, you aren't safe at all. You've stopped one of us it doesn't matter, the order will never stop. Never. We shall continue until the trials are complete and Kenatral will return and this world will be covered in her glorious shadow!" Jacob threw up his arms and laughed, not even seeming to care as his hands touched the crystal cage and burned him.

Chris was silent as he laughed for a few moments before he spoke. "Well, they'd better bring their A game." He turned to look at Melinda. "Mel, you want to do the fun part?"

Melinda stared at her laughing ex for a few moments before she let out a heavy sigh and flicked out her hands, Jacob had just enough time to let out half a scream before he was blown apart in the crystal cage.

"Are you okay?" Wyatt asked as he placed his hand gently on her shoulder.

"No."

End of Chapter Seven.

* * *

 **I know I said that this chapter would be the finale chapter of this episode but I decided to write the final part of this chapter as it's own chapter as I thought it would make for a nice little epilogue. Anyway, I really hope that you enjoyed this chapter and if you could leave a review, a follow and a favourite I would really appreciate it.**

 **Warm regards and I hope you have a great new year,**

 **Doctorwhofan12345.**


	8. Chapter 8

Charmed:

The Next Generation.

Season One.

Episode One.

Chapter Eight.

The flames were rising towards the dark roof of the cavern and were castling long shadows stretching all across the roof, they stretched out like claws that were ready to cut into anyone that came to close to them, they looked ready to dig into Jana's fleash, she realised with a gulp. She knew that she didn't have much of a chance, her master was terrible at any time but when he was angry death was sure to follow.

At the moment, all she could hope for was that she would die quickly. She had seen her master when he was angry with someone and he had drawn out their deaths for as long as he possibly could, the things he could do when he was wroth...it seemed her master's most imaginative moments came when he was angry.

And the only way for him to calm down was to inflict pain on to others. She had seen what was left of some of the demons that had displeased him and death by witches would be a kinder fate for her to endure.

A scream brought her of her thoughts and she looked up just in time to see her master digging his finger nails into the eyeballs of one of her brethren. She had seen worse, the only thing she was concerned about was that would happen to her. The worst thing she had ever seen was one of her fellow demons having their skin peeled off like an apple, he didn't kill him because they could regenerate any from any injury.

Skin was a bitch to grow back, there were so many nerves. It was even worse when he was so angry that he would dip them in vats of salt first. She had suffered that once before and death would seem like a pleasant embrace compared to that. She would welcome it with a smile.

The screaming had started once again and Jana looked back to see that the demon was now on fire, oh, she was going to die today, she thought as she watched the skin began to char and turn black. The smell filling the air would almost be appetising, if she didn't know what the cause of it was. Her brother screamed and screamed and yet no one in the chamber moved, no one wanted to risk turning their Master's wrath on to them.

Soon, all that was left was ashes. This was very, very bad. Their master enjoyed punishing them but he never usually killed one of them, not unless he was beyond angry. Their numbers were dwindling more and more and the past two days had been a slaughter for them. This is had been one of the worst mistakes that the order had ever made, it had been three days of opportunity and they had ruined it.

All because they could not resist the idea of killing the Charmed Ones and their whelps. They could have killed any number of witches, and San Francesco was swarming with the foul things. They could have had it done in a single night of the three that they had been granted but they had been so sure that they could deal with the Halliwells, it had been months since there had been an attack on them in their own homes, they could catch them by surprise.

And their queen would be beyond pleased, the Halliwells were the key defenders of the reality and if they were dealt with before they completed all of the trials that were required for the gate home to be opened to them then it would make her conquest that much easier. It had all seemed so perfect and they had managed to convince their master to go along with it.

And now it was all for nought. It was going to be nearly a year before they had a chance to complete this trial again and they only had a year to complete all the trials before them. They had lost so much and if they ran out of chances then they would have to wait how knows how many thousands and thousands of years before they could try and open the gateway home again.

She was going to die. She was going to die.

Her masters eyes landed on her and she took a deep breath, this was going to hurt. With luck she would pass out from the pain before he finally decided to kill her. Taking a deep breath she began to walk forward to the raised platform on which he stood.

"Jana, you've always been one of my favourites you know? You've always had half a brain cell rocking around in that head of yours, sadly it doesn't mean much of anything as I've killed my favourites before." He reached out and seized her by her throat. "Why shouldn't I just kill you now?"

She gagged and her hands came up to try and pry the hand around her throat off, it was rather pointless really. He was so much stronger than she was, he could break her neck as easily as a human would break a matchstick. A broken neck wouldn't kill her, of course, but it was not a pleasant experience to say the very least. And it wasn't a wound you could regenerate from, she would have to snap her head back into place afterwards.

That was of course assuming that she would be alive to do so, which was not exactly looking likely at the moment. It was funny, she wasn't exactly enjoying it but she always thought that she would be a lot more terrified when this moment came. Maybe that was the point, not if, when. She always knew that this day was coming, it was only a matter of time and now it was here.

That thought filled her with a strange courage, she met her master's eyes and he loosened his grip, though he did not let go. She could at least draw enough breath for her to speak. "You can kill me master, if that would please you. But I ask that you stop and consider what an utterly stupid move that would be. I would remind you that it was not my plan to attack the Halliwells, I can't even remember whose idea it was. More than likely, they are dead now."

"These events have made us less, and there are still trials that need to be completed. I have been at your side for centuries master, I killed dozens of witches and I am one of the few who came away from this disaster with my life still intact. If anyone has a chance of getting them done, then it's me. I fought the Halliwells and I am still standing." Well, she had fought one of them and she barely survived that but it sounded better than saying that she had fought one of them and ran away.

Her master stared at her for a few moments, his eyes unblinking before he threw her across the chamber. Jana felt her back snap as it came into contact with the wall, she had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming. That was going to take a while to regenerate from but considering that she wasn't on fire nor did she receive an energy ball to the chest that she would count her blessings for the moment.

Her master stared at her for a few moments before he scoffed and crossed his arms. "You're as incompetent as the rest of them Jana, make no mistake about that but you are correct when you say that I can not afford to kill all of you. So, congratulations you get to stay breathing. For at least a little bit longer. But do not fail me again. There will be no more chances, I have lost my taste for failure."

"Of course Master, I will not fail you again. I swear it in the name of our queen." She spat out through the pain, it felt like someone had shoved a crowbar into her back and had used it to pry her ribs open. This wasn't something that she was going to forget, not for a very long time. That was a promise.

Her master strode back to his throne, which she had noticed that lately he had been finding it difficult to rise from. It made sense, they couldn't die of old age but time wore on all of them after a point and her Master had lived longer than any of them, he had been one of the first to follow their queen on her conquests and he had been the one who had lead the charge into this dimension.

And he and his troops had been trapped here when those witches had slammed the door behind them. She couldn't imagine how that must have felt, she hadn't been alive at the time though her ancestor had been, apparently she had been one of her master's most trusted lieutenants and she had sworn herself and her entire line to his cause, they would not rest until they were returned home.

Not that her ancestor's vow had meant that he treated her better than he did any of the others. If anything, it was more like he actually treated her worse whenever she was the one to fail him.

Her Master glanced around the chamber and spat on the floor. "All of you out, I am tired of looking at you." The air whistled as by the dozens her brethren began to shimmer out of the cave, Jana was one of the last to leave.

It was odd, but just before she entered the space of nothingness between the cave and her destination that it took a second for her to travel though, she was almost certain that she saw her master's legs buckle and he collapsed against the chair. Of course, that was impossible.

* * *

Melinda sat out on the porch of the manor with a cup of sweet strong tea clasped in her hands and a thin blanket dropped over her shoulder, the tea was for the shock she had suffered the night before and the blanket was to shield her from the early morning chill, the sun was out but it's light barely seemed to warn her, the city seemed as cold as she did it at the moment.

It wasn't something new, it wasn't the first time a demon and a warlock had tried to get close to them through their love life, it had happened to Melinda at least once or twice. It was just...she had really liked Jacob, she had liked him quiet a bit. She had never suspected that he might not have been exactly what he said that he had been. She felt stupid. She felt used.

She felt broken.

She heard the front doors opening but she didn't turn around to look as Chris sat down next to her, a cup of coffee in his hands and wearing a thin jacket. "God, it's so cold. Are you doing alright?" His voice was filled with concern and compassion and she loved him for that but at the moment all she wanted was to be left alone, it struck her as odd that as Chris was an empath he did not understand that simple face.

Her brother always saw a problem and he wanted to fix it as soon as possible, she knew that it was done out of love but this was nothing that he could fix. She had to fix it by herself, no matter how long that it took. Still, he wanted an answer and she knew that it would do no good to lie. Not that Chris would use his empathy or telepathy on her without her permission but Melinda was crap at lying and Chris was good at seeing through great liars.

"I'll be honest with you, I am not okay. Not even remotely. I thought that...I don't know what I thought. But I liked him Chris, I liked him a lot. I was actually thinking of inviting him over to meet Mom and Dad, properly I mean." Mel cursed inwardly when she felt tears burning at her eyes, her tears rolled down her cheeks and began to splash into her coffee.

Her eyes were shut but she felt an arm being thrown over her shoulders and Mel didn't bother resisting any longer, she buried her face into her brother's chest and began to sob loudly and roughly as she felt Chris rubbing up and down her back to try and offer her a little comfort, it didn't seem to be working but she loved the gesture if nothing else that it did for her.

After what had to be close to half an hour the tears had finally stopped and Melinda finally felt at least a tiny bit better, she hadn't truly cried about it before right now as the night before she had been so busy assuring all of her family members that she was alright that for a little while she had almost convinced herself of the lie as well, but now in her privacy she admitted it.

She was not okay. She wasn't even close too it at the moment.

But she did feel better now.

She took in a deep breath and pulled away from Chris, rubbing at her eyes as she did so. Chris didn't say anything, he just waited for her to speak. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine, I didn't like this jacket that much anyway. I think I probably should have worn a thicker one, I forgot that you could cry enough to flood all of Texas. Twice." He said with a smirk and Melinda snorted, it wasn't a funny joke but the fact that he tried to make one and wasn't treating her any differently than he had done the night before...it helped, it helped quiet a bit.

The two of them simply sat there for a few hours, saying nothing. Watching the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, early morning turned into late morning and they enjoyed the silence for as long as it lasted. The front door opened once again and their mother poked her head out. "Hey, can you too come and help me get lunch started. It's going to be a lot of work."

"Give us a sec, will be right in." Melinda said and their mother nodded before she shut the door, once it was closed she turned to speak to her brother. "What Jacob said, do you think he meant it? That there'll be more of them? That they will try again?

Chris was quiet for a few moments before he offered her a smile. "If he was telling the truth, then they had better give us their best then we are going to give our best right back at them."

Melinda smiled and jumped to her feet as she followed Chris back inside, they stood in the doorway for a few moments and she and Chris shared a smile. Chris twitched his fingers and the door swung shut.

End of Episode One.

* * *

 **Well, that's the first episode of this season done. If you would be so kind as to leave a review, a follow and a favourite then I would really appreciate it.**

 **Love,**

 **Doctorwhofan12345**


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